scholarly journals Revisiting the trend in the occurrences of the “warm Arctic–cold Eurasian continent” temperature pattern

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (22) ◽  
pp. 13753-13770
Author(s):  
Lejiang Yu ◽  
Shiyuan Zhong ◽  
Cuijuan Sui ◽  
Bo Sun

Abstract. The recent increasing trend of “warm Arctic, cold continents” has attracted much attention, but it remains debatable as to what forces are behind this phenomenon. Here, we revisited surface temperature variability over the Arctic and the Eurasian continent by applying the self-organizing-map (SOM) technique to gridded daily surface temperature data. Nearly 40 % of the surface temperature trends are explained by the nine SOM patterns that depict the switch to the current warm Arctic–cold Eurasia pattern at the beginning of this century from the reversed pattern that dominated the 1980s and 1990s. Further, no cause–effect relationship is found between the Arctic sea ice loss and the cold spells in the high-latitude to midlatitude Eurasian continent suggested by earlier studies. Instead, the increasing trend in warm Arctic–cold Eurasia pattern appears to be related to the anomalous atmospheric circulations associated with two Rossby wave trains triggered by rising sea surface temperature (SST) over the central North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans. On interdecadal timescale, the recent increase in the occurrences of the warm Arctic–cold Eurasia pattern is a fragment of the interdecadal variability of SST over the Atlantic Ocean as represented by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and over the central Pacific Ocean.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lejiang Yu ◽  
Shiyuan Zhong ◽  
Cuijuan Sui ◽  
Bo Sun

Abstract. The recent increasing trend of warm Arctic, cold continents has attracted much attention, but it remains debatable as to what forces are behind this phenomenon. Here, we revisited surface-temperature variability over the Arctic and Eurasian continent by applying the Self-Organizing-Map (SOM) technique to gridded daily surface temperature data. Nearly 40 % of the surface temperature trends are explained by the nine SOM patterns that depict the switch to the current warm Arctic-cold Eurasia pattern at the beginning of this century from the reversed pattern that dominated the 1980s and the 90s. Further, no cause-effect relationship is found between the Arctic sea-ice loss and the cold spells in high-mid latitude Eurasian continent suggested by earlier studies. Instead, the increasing trend in warm Arctic-cold Eurasia pattern appears to be related to the anomalous atmospheric circulations associated with two Rossby wavetrains triggered by rising sea surface temperature (SST) over the central North Pacific and the North Atlantic Oceans. On interdecadal timescale, the recent increase in the occurrences of the warm Arctic-cold Eurasia pattern is a fragment of the interdecadal variability of SST over the Atlantic Ocean as represented by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillations (AMO), and over the central Pacific Ocean.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (S1) ◽  
pp. 233-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farahnaz Fazel-Rastgar

Abstract The observed unusually high temperatures in the Arctic during recent decades can be related to the Arctic sea ice declines in summer 2007, 2012 and 2016. Arctic dipole formation has been associated with all three heatwaves of 2007, 2012 and 2016 in the Canadian Arctic. Here, the differences in weather patterns are investigated and compared with normal climatological mean (1981–2010) structures. This study examines the high-resolution datasets from the North American Regional Reanalysis model. During the study periods, the north of Alaska has been affected by the low-pressure tongue. The maximum difference between Greenland high-pressure centre and Alaska low-pressure tongue for the summers of 2012, 2016 and 2007 are 8 hPa, 7 hPa and 6 hPa, respectively, corresponding and matching to the maximum summer surface Canadian Arctic temperature records. During anomalous summer heatwaves, low-level wind, temperatures, total clouds (%) and downward radiation flux at the surface are dramatically changed. This study shows the surface albedo has been reduced over most parts of the Canadian Arctic Ocean during the mentioned heatwaves (∼5–40%), with a higher change (specifically in the eastern Canadian Arctic region) during summer 2012 in comparison with summer 2016 and summer 2007, agreeing with the maximum surface temperature and sea ice decline records.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Semenov ◽  
Tatiana Matveeva

<p>Global warming in the recent decades has been accompanied by a rapid recline of the Arctic sea ice area most pronounced in summer (10% per decade). To understand the relative contribution of external forcing and natural variability to the modern and future sea ice area changes, it is necessary to evaluate a range of long-term variations of the Arctic sea ice area in the period before a significant increase in anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Available observational data on the spatiotemporal dynamics of Arctic sea ice until 1950s are characterized by significant gaps and uncertainties. In the recent years, there have appeared several reconstructions of the early 20<sup>th</sup> century Arctic sea ice area that filled the gaps by analogue methods or utilized combined empirical data and climate model’s output. All of them resulted in a stronger that earlier believed negative sea ice area anomaly in the 1940s concurrent with the early 20<sup>th</sup> century warming (ETCW) peak. In this study, we reconstruct the monthly average gridded sea ice concentration (SIC) in the first half of the 20th century using the relationship between the spatiotemporal features of SIC variability, surface air temperature over the Northern Hemisphere extratropical continents, sea surface temperature in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and sea level pressure. In agreement with a few previous results, our reconstructed data also show a significant negative anomaly of the Arctic sea ice area in the middle of the 20th century, however with some 15% to 30% stronger amplitude, about 1.5 million km<sup>2</sup> in September and 0.7 million km<sup>2</sup> in March. The reconstruction demonstrates a good agreement with regional Arctic sea ice area data when available and suggests that ETWC in the Arctic has been accompanied by a concurrent sea ice area decline of a magnitude that have been exceeded only in the beginning of the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</p>


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 969-982 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Berger ◽  
J. Brandefelt ◽  
J. Nilsson

Abstract. In the present work the Arctic sea ice in the mid-Holocene and the pre-industrial climates are analysed and compared on the basis of climate-model results from the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project phase 2 (PMIP2) and phase 3 (PMIP3). The PMIP3 models generally simulate smaller and thinner sea-ice extents than the PMIP2 models both for the pre-industrial and the mid-Holocene climate. Further, the PMIP2 and PMIP3 models all simulate a smaller and thinner Arctic summer sea-ice cover in the mid-Holocene than in the pre-industrial control climate. The PMIP3 models also simulate thinner winter sea ice than the PMIP2 models. The winter sea-ice extent response, i.e. the difference between the mid-Holocene and the pre-industrial climate, varies among both PMIP2 and PMIP3 models. Approximately one half of the models simulate a decrease in winter sea-ice extent and one half simulates an increase. The model-mean summer sea-ice extent is 11 % (21 %) smaller in the mid-Holocene than in the pre-industrial climate simulations in the PMIP2 (PMIP3). In accordance with the simple model of Thorndike (1992), the sea-ice thickness response to the insolation change from the pre-industrial to the mid-Holocene is stronger in models with thicker ice in the pre-industrial climate simulation. Further, the analyses show that climate models for which the Arctic sea-ice responses to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations are similar may simulate rather different sea-ice responses to the change in solar forcing between the mid-Holocene and the pre-industrial. For two specific models, which are analysed in detail, this difference is found to be associated with differences in the simulated cloud fractions in the summer Arctic; in the model with a larger cloud fraction the effect of insolation change is muted. A sub-set of the mid-Holocene simulations in the PMIP ensemble exhibit open water off the north-eastern coast of Greenland in summer, which can provide a fetch for surface waves. This is in broad agreement with recent analyses of sea-ice proxies, indicating that beach-ridges formed on the north-eastern coast of Greenland during the early- to mid-Holocene.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (24) ◽  
pp. 10743-10754
Author(s):  
Hongdou Fan ◽  
Lin Wang ◽  
Yang Zhang ◽  
Youmin Tang ◽  
Wansuo Duan ◽  
...  

AbstractBased on 36-yr hindcasts from the fifth-generation seasonal forecast system of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (SEAS5), the most predictable patterns of the wintertime 2-m air temperature (T2m) in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere are extracted via the maximum signal-to-noise (MSN) empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis, and their associated predictability sources are identified. The MSN EOF1 captures the warming trend that amplifies over the Arctic but misses the associated warm Arctic–cold continent pattern. The MSN EOF2 delineates a wavelike T2m pattern over the Pacific–North America region, which is rooted in the tropical forcing of the eastern Pacific-type El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The MSN EOF3 shows a wavelike T2m pattern over the Pacific–North America region, which has an approximately 90° phase difference from that associated with MSN EOF2, and a loading center over midlatitude Eurasia. Its sources of predictability include the central Pacific-type ENSO and Eurasian snow cover. The MSN EOF4 reflects T2m variability surrounding the Tibetan Plateau, which is plausibly linked to the remote forcing of the Arctic sea ice. The information on the leading predictable patterns and their sources of predictability is further used to develop a calibration scheme to improve the prediction skill of T2m. The calibrated prediction skill in terms of the anomaly correlation coefficient improves significantly over midlatitude Eurasia in a leave-one-out cross-validation, implying a possible way to improve the wintertime T2m prediction in the SEAS5.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 417-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Hand ◽  
Noel S. Keenlyside ◽  
Nour-Eddine Omrani ◽  
Jürgen Bader ◽  
Richard J. Greatbatch

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (19) ◽  
pp. 4973-4991 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter R. Gent ◽  
Gokhan Danabasoglu ◽  
Leo J. Donner ◽  
Marika M. Holland ◽  
Elizabeth C. Hunke ◽  
...  

The fourth version of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4) was recently completed and released to the climate community. This paper describes developments to all CCSM components, and documents fully coupled preindustrial control runs compared to the previous version, CCSM3. Using the standard atmosphere and land resolution of 1° results in the sea surface temperature biases in the major upwelling regions being comparable to the 1.4°-resolution CCSM3. Two changes to the deep convection scheme in the atmosphere component result in CCSM4 producing El Niño–Southern Oscillation variability with a much more realistic frequency distribution than in CCSM3, although the amplitude is too large compared to observations. These changes also improve the Madden–Julian oscillation and the frequency distribution of tropical precipitation. A new overflow parameterization in the ocean component leads to an improved simulation of the Gulf Stream path and the North Atlantic Ocean meridional overturning circulation. Changes to the CCSM4 land component lead to a much improved annual cycle of water storage, especially in the tropics. The CCSM4 sea ice component uses much more realistic albedos than CCSM3, and for several reasons the Arctic sea ice concentration is improved in CCSM4. An ensemble of twentieth-century simulations produces a good match to the observed September Arctic sea ice extent from 1979 to 2005. The CCSM4 ensemble mean increase in globally averaged surface temperature between 1850 and 2005 is larger than the observed increase by about 0.4°C. This is consistent with the fact that CCSM4 does not include a representation of the indirect effects of aerosols, although other factors may come into play. The CCSM4 still has significant biases, such as the mean precipitation distribution in the tropical Pacific Ocean, too much low cloud in the Arctic, and the latitudinal distributions of shortwave and longwave cloud forcings.


2001 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 457-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josefino C. Comiso

AbstractRecent observations of a decreasing ice extent and a possible thinning of the ice cover in the Arctic make it imperative that detailed studies of the current Arctic environment are made, especially since the region is known to be highly sensitive to a potential change in climate. A continuous dataset of microwave, thermal infrared and visible satellite data has been analyzed for the first time to concurrently study in spatial detail the variability of the sea-ice cover, surface temperature, albedo and cloud statistics in the region from 1987 to 1998. Large warming anomalies during the last four years (i.e. 1995−98) are indeed apparent and spatially more extensive than previous years. The largest surface temperature anomaly occurred in 1998, but this was confined mainly to the western Arctic and the North American continent, while cooling occurred in other areas. The albedo anomalies show good coherence with the sea-ice concentration anomalies except in the central region, where periodic changes in albedo are observed, indicative of interannual changes in duration and areal extent of melt ponding and snow-free ice cover. The cloud-cover anomalies are more difficult to interpret, but are shown to be well correlated with the expected warming effects of clouds on the sea-ice surface. The results from trend analyses of the data are consistent with a general warming trend and an ice-cover retreat that appear to be even larger during the last dozen years than those previously reported.


2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 1104-1121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey Kravtsov ◽  
Christopher Spannagle

Abstract This study identifies interdecadal natural climate variability in global surface temperatures by subtracting, from the observed temperature evolution, multimodel ensemble mean based on the World Climate Research Programme's (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) multimodel dataset. The resulting signal resembles the so-called Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) and is presumably associated with intrinsic dynamics of the oceanic thermohaline circulation (THC). While certain phases of the oscillation are dominated by the anomalies in the North Atlantic region, other phases are characterized by global teleconnections to the North Pacific Ocean, tropical Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Southern Ocean. In particular, natural variability of sea surface temperature in the Atlantic hurricanes’ main development region has a peak-to-peak amplitude comparable in magnitude to this region’s surface temperature increase over the past century, for all seasons. Evidence suggests that the AMO influence on secular trends in the global-mean surface temperature can arise via direct, regional contribution to the surface temperature evolution, as well as via an indirect route linked to variability of the oceanic uptake of CO2 associated with AMO-related THC changes.


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