ON THE RELATION BETWEEN POLAR CONTINENTALITY AND CLIMATE - STUDIES WITH A NONLINEAR SEASONAL ENERGY-BALANCE MODEL Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Previous studies with a two-dimensional, seasonal energy balance model (EBM) suggested that large annual cycles on supercontinents could produce sufficiently high summer temperatures to melt summer snow, even when the continents were located in polar regions. The above calculations were done with a linear model. In this paper we test the sensitivity of these conclusions to seasonally varying snow albedo feedback by developing a new nonlinear two-dimensional, seasonal EBM. The model satisfactorily reproduces the present annual and semi-annual cycles, plus snow and sea ice margins; its sensitivity is 25% greater than that of the linear model and comparable to a number of general circulation model (GCM) studies for altered CO2 levels. -from Authors

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES

author list (cited authors)

  • HYDE, W. T., KIM, K. Y., CROWLEY, T. J., & NORTH, G. R.

citation count

  • 41

complete list of authors

  • HYDE, WT||KIM, KY||CROWLEY, TJ||NORTH, GR

publication date

  • October 1990