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Summary: Causes and impacts of changes in the Arctic freshwater budget
during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in an AOGCM
Olivier Arzel Æ Thierry Fichefet Æ Hugues Goosse Æ
Jean-Louis Dufresne
Received: 5 September 2006 / Accepted: 30 March 2007 / Published online: 27 April 2007
Ó Springer-Verlag 2007
Abstract The fourth version of the atmosphere-ocean
general circulation (AOGCM) model developed at the
Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace (IPSL-CM4) is used to
investigate the mechanisms influencing the Arctic fresh-
water balance in response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas
forcing. The freshwater influence on the interannual vari-
ability of deep winter oceanic convection in the Nordic Seas
is also studied on the basis of correlation and regression
analyses of detrended variables. The model shows that the
Fram Strait outflow, which is an important source of fresh-
water for the northern North Atlantic, experiences a rapid
and strong transition from a weak state toward a relatively
strong state during 19902010. The authors propose that this
climate shift is triggered by the retreat of sea ice in the
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