Eddy-rich Arctic as future Sea ice disappears in high-resolution view

The continuing retreat of sea ice affects the Arctic mesoscale eddies, and its future evolution will strongly influence air-sea-ice interactions. However, knowledge of eddy activity is limited to sparse observations and coarse resolution models. How future eddies and their effects will evolve remains uncertain. Here, we apply the global unstructured model FESOM2 for 143 years of 4.5 km-Arctic simulations up to 2100 and 1 km-Arctic simulations for 5 years from 2010; 2090 to reveal the interactions between eddies, winds, sea ice and the energy budget of eddy kinetic energy (EKE) in a high resolution view. We demonstrate a significant increase in future Arctic EKE from 0-200 m, which is stronger in summer when sea ice melts. The future abundance of EKE can be explained by an increase in winter eddy generation and a decrease in summer eddy dissipation. This also leads to an enhancement of the horizontal velocity field, thus filling the Arctic Ocean with eddies in the future.