EconBase
← All papers

Arctic Amplification of Anthropogenic Forcing: A Vector Autoregressive Analysis

Philippe Goulet Coulombe, Maximilian Göbel

arXiv 5 May 2020 · Econometrics · publishedJournal of Climate (2021) · 3 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2005.02535 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

On September 15th 2020, Arctic sea ice extent (SIE) ranked second-to-lowest in history and keeps trending downward. The understanding of how feedback loops amplify the effects of external CO2 forcing is still limited. We propose the VARCTIC, which is a Vector Autoregression (VAR) designed to capture and extrapolate Arctic feedback loops. VARs are dynamic simultaneous systems of equations, routinely estimated to predict and understand the interactions of multiple macroeconomic time series. The VARCTIC is a parsimonious compromise between full-blown climate models and purely statistical approaches that usually offer little explanation of the underlying mechanism. Our completely unconditional forecast has SIE hitting 0 in September by the 2060's. Impulse response functions reveal that anthropogenic CO2 emission shocks have an unusually durable effect on SIE -- a property shared by no other shock. We find Albedo- and Thickness-based feedbacks to be the main amplification channels through which CO2 anomalies impact SIE in the short/medium run. Further, conditional forecast analyses reveal that the future path of SIE crucially depends on the evolution of CO2 emissions, with outcomes ranging from recovering SIE to it reaching 0 in the 2050's. Finally, Albedo and Thickness feedbacks are shown to play an important role in accelerating the speed at which predicted SIE is heading towards 0.

Citation extraction

69
references
121
in-text mentions
69
distinct cited
0
self-citations
10,868
main-text words

appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 73% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Meier, W., and Coauthors (2014) Arctic sea ice in transformation: A review of recent observed changes and impacts on biology and human activity1.00093100%
2Parkinson, C., and J. Comiso (2013) On the 2012 record low arctic sea ice cover: Combined impact of preconditioning and an august storm1.00063100%
3Notz, D., and J. Stroeve (2016) Observed arctic sea-ice loss directly follows anthropogenic co2 emission1.00063100%
4Notz, D., and Coauthors (2020) Arctic sea ice in cmip60.87462100%
5McGraw, M. C., and E. A. Barnes (2018) Memory matters: a case for granger causality in climate variability studies0.84333100%
6Dai, A., D. Luo, M. Song, and J. Liu (2019) Arctic amplification is caused by sea-ice loss under increasing co20.73732100%
7Diebold, F., and G. Rudebusch (2021) Probability assessments of an ice-free arctic: Comparing statistical and climate model projections0.73732100%
8Stroeve, J., V. Kattsov, A. Barrett, M. Serreze, T. Pavlova, M. Holl… (2012) Trends in arctic sea ice extent from cmip5, cmip3 and observations0.73732100%
9Stroeve, J., and D. Notz (2018) Changing state of arctic sea ice across all seasons0.73732100%
10Goosse, H., and Coauthors (2018) Sea ice outlook: 2019 august report0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 69 scored citations.

Cited by, within the corpus

arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1High-Dimensional Granger Causality for Climatic Attribution0.40511