An assessment of Antarctic sea-ice thickness in CMIP6 simulations with comparison to the satellite-based observations and reanalyses

Trivedi, Shreya; Hobbs, Will; Raphael, Marilyn

doi:10.5194/tc-19-6771-2025

Articles | Volume 19, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6771-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6771-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 12

Research article

|

12 Dec 2025

Research article |

| 12 Dec 2025

An assessment of Antarctic sea-ice thickness in CMIP6 simulations with comparison to the satellite-based observations and reanalyses

Shreya Trivedi, Will Hobbs, and Marilyn Raphael

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-6771-2025-supplement

Data sets

Bootstrap Sea Ice Concentrations from Nimbus-7 SMMR and DMSP SSM/I-SSMIS J. C. Comiso https://doi.org/10.5067/7Q8HCCWS4I0R

ESA sea ice climate change initiative (sea_ice_cci): Southern hemisphere sea ice thickness from the CryoSat-2 satellite on a monthly grid (L3C), v2.0 S. Hendricks et al. https://doi.org/10.5285/48fc3d1e8ada405c8486ada522dae9e8

ESA sea ice climate change initiative (Sea_Ice_cci): Southern hemisphere sea ice thickness from the Envisat satellite on a monthly grid(L3C), v2.0 S. Hendricks et al. https://doi.org/10.5285/b1f1ac03077b4aa784c5a413a2210bf5

Towards improved and more routine Earth system model evaluation in CMIP (https://aims2.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/) V. Eyring et al. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-813-2016

Evaluating the GECCO3 1948-2018 ocean synthesis - a configuration for initializing the MPI-ESM climate model (https://www.cen.uni-hamburg.de/icdc/data/ocean/easy-init-ocean/gecco3.html) A. Köhl https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3790

Modeling Global Sea Ice with a Thickness and Enthalpy Distribution Model in Generalized Curvilinear Coordinates (https://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Global_seaice/data.html) J. Zhang and D. A. Rothrock https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(2003)131<0845:MGSIWA>2.0.CO;2

Model code and software

shreyatrivedi26/Antarctic-sea-ice-thickness-in-CMIP6-simulations: Antarctic sea ice thickness in CMIP6 S. Trivedi https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17884080

Short summary

The study analyzes sea-ice thickness variations in the Southern Ocean using 39 CMIP6 models and satellite and reanalysis datasets. It reveals seasonal covariances between sea ice area and thickness. The models replicate the mean seasonal cycle and spatial patterns, but show significant inter-model variability, with sea-ice area better simulated than thickness. The study emphasizes the need for improved Antarctic sea-ice processes in models for accurate thickness projections.