Articles | Volume 19, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-883-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-883-2023
Research article
 | 
02 May 2023
Research article |  | 02 May 2023

Summer surface air temperature proxies point to near-sea-ice-free conditions in the Arctic at 127 ka

Louise C. Sime, Rahul Sivankutty, Irene Vallet-Malmierca, Agatha M. de Boer, and Marie Sicard

Data sets

Last Interglacial summer air temperature observations for the Arctic (Version 1.0) [Data set] M. V. Guarino and L. Sime https://doi.org/10.5285/9AB58D27-596A-472C-A13E-2DCD68612082

Model code and software

jbusecke/xMIP: v0.7.1 (v0.7.1) J. Busecke, M. Ritschel, E. Maroon, T. Nicholas, and readthedocs-assistant https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7519179

ProPlot (v0.9.5) L. B. D. Luke https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5602155

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Short summary
It is not known if the Last Interglacial (LIG) experienced Arctic summers that were sea ice free: models show a wide spread in LIG Arctic temperature and sea ice results. Evaluation against sea ice markers is hampered by few observations. Here, an assessment of 11 climate model simulations against summer temperatures shows that the most skilful models have a 74 %–79 % reduction in LIG sea ice. The measurements of LIG areas indicate a likely mix of ice-free and near-ice-free LIG summers.