Jeffries, Overland, and Perovich reply: We thank Stephen Warren for pointing out that Arctic atmospheric black carbon concentrations have been decreasing. Nevertheless, black carbon remains a short-lived climate forcer that affects the radiation balance in the Arctic. As such, it is one of several potential contributors to Arctic amplification of global warming that is manifested, for example, in the dramatic reduction of sea-ice extent in the summer. Each of those contributors to Arctic amplification was described in our article. Nowhere in the article did we propose black carbon as the sole cause of sea-ice loss, as Warren’s final sentence seems to imply.
© 2014 American Institute of Physics.
2014
American Institute of Physics
