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Historical and Projected Antarctic Sea Ice Trends Across High-Resolution Coupled Model Hierarchies

Led by Mitch Bushuk, this article investigates the hypothesis that eddy-resolving climate models may improve the simulation of Antarctic sea ice trends. Using high-resolution model hierarchies from GFDL and NCAR alongside three generations of CMIP models, the study finds no clear relationship between ocean or atmospheric resolution and Antarctic sea ice trends, either over the historical period or the remainder of the 21st century. Instead, models that successfully reproduce the observed trend tend to exhibit large-amplitude multidecadal variability in the Southern Ocean, suggesting that these models may be getting the “right answer for the wrong reasons.”