atmosphere Article Precursors of September Arctic Sea-Ice Extent Based on Causal Effect Networks Sha Li 1, Muyin Wang 2,3,*, Nicholas A. Bond 2,3, Wenyu Huang 1 , Yong Wang 1, Shiming Xu 1 , Jiping Liu 4, Bin Wang 1,5 and Yuqi Bai 1,* 1 Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China;
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[email protected] (Y.B.); Tel.: +1-206-526-4532 (M.W.); +86-10-6279-5269 (Y.B.) Received: 1 October 2018; Accepted: 2 November 2018; Published: 9 November 2018 Abstract: Although standard statistical methods and climate models can simulate and predict sea-ice changes well, it is still very hard to distinguish some direct and robust factors associated with sea-ice changes from its internal variability and other noises.