Impact of surface wind biases on the Antarctic sea ice concentration budget in climate models

•The ice concentration budget (ICB) is applied to several forced and coupled models.•Ice drift and 10 m wind vectors are evaluated against observations and reanalyses.•Biases in winds are largely responsible for biases in the ICB in free drift regions.•Errors in winds and sea ice model physics are equally important closer to the coast.•The method provides a new tool for climate model intercomparisons.