Sea Ice Response to Orbital Forcing in Idealized Climate Model Experiments

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The Earth's glacial cycles are influenced by variations in its orbital parameters, particularly obliquity, precession, and eccentricity. These variations alter solar radiation distribution, impacting climate dynamics and sea ice formation. The effects of obliquity and eccentricity‐modulated precession on sea ice area and thickness are analyzed using climate model output from a series of idealized single‐forcing experiments from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory CM2.1 and the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Earth System Model version 1.2. Results indicate that obliquity, under preindustrial precession conditions, exerts a stronger influence on annual sea ice variations than precession, under preindustrial obliquity conditions, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, primarily due to its effect on annual mean insolation. Precession, while still impactful, induces seasonal anomalies that tend to counteract one another, reducing its overall contribution. These findings highlight the significant role of obliquity in regulating sea ice over glacial timescales.