Iron Abstract Sea-ice-free Arctic summers are expected within the next decades due to anthropogenic warming.Studying past warm interglacials offers valuable insights into the Arctic climate system under similar conditions.Here we present a series of simulations that represent a chronological sequence of interglacial climate states over Marine Isotope Stages 5e and 11c using the Community Earth System Model.While previous studies attempted to explain the Arctic sea-ice evolution through changes in summer solstice insolation, we demonstrate that summer sea-ice Scanner3D area during both interglacial periods is primarily driven by an inverse relationship with integrated summer energy.
Although proxy data yield conflicting results on Last Interglacial Arctic sea-ice cover, our simulations suggest seasonally ice-free conditions across the Arctic during the early interglacial phase.In both interglacials, climate states with intermediate levels of summer sea-ice area are characterized by maximum interannual variability in sea-ice area.