scholarly journals Reconstructing past atmospheric circulation changes using oxygen isotopes in lake sediments from Sweden

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Jonsson ◽  
S. Andersson ◽  
G. C. Rosqvist ◽  
M. J. Leng

Abstract. Here we use lake sediment studies from Sweden to illustrate how Holocene-aged oxygen isotope records from lakes located in different hydrological settings, can provide information about climate change. In particular changes in precipitation, atmospheric circulation and water balance. We highlight the importance of understanding the present lake hydrology, and the relationship between climate variables and the oxygen isotopic composition of precipitation ( δ18Op) and lake waters (δ18Olakewater) for interpretation of the oxygen isotopic record from the sediments (δ18O). Both precipitation reconstructions from Northern Sweden and water balance reconstructions from South and Central Sweden show that the atmospheric circulation changed from zonal to a more meridional airflow over the Holocene. Superimposed on this Holocene trend are δ18Op minima resembling intervals of the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), thus suggesting that the climate of Northern Europe is strongly influenced by atmospheric and oceanic circulation changes over the North Atlantic.

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 1609-1644 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Jonsson ◽  
S. Andersson ◽  
G. C. Rosqvist ◽  
M. J. Leng

Abstract. Here we use lake sediment studies from Sweden to illustrate how Holocene-aged oxygen isotope records (from lakes located in different hydrological settings) can provide information about climate change. In particular changes in precipitation, atmospheric circulation and water balance. We highlight the importance of understanding the present and past lake hydrology, and the relationship between climate parameters and the oxygen isotopic composition of precipitation (δ18Op) and lake waters (δ18Olakewater) for interpretation of the oxygen isotopic record from the sediments (δ18O). Both precipitation reconstructions from northern Sweden and water balance reconstructions from south and central Sweden show that the atmospheric circulation changed from zonal to a more meridional air flow over the Holocene. Superimposed on this Holocene trend are δ18Op minima resembling intervals of the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), thus suggesting that the climate of northern Europe is strongly influenced by atmospheric and oceanic circulation changes over the North Atlantic.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1593-1608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasper G. Franke ◽  
Johannes P. Werner ◽  
Reik V. Donner

Abstract. Obtaining reliable reconstructions of long-term atmospheric circulation changes in the North Atlantic region presents a persistent challenge to contemporary paleoclimate research, which has been addressed by a multitude of recent studies. In order to contribute a novel methodological aspect to this active field, we apply here evolving functional network analysis, a recently developed tool for studying temporal changes of the spatial co-variability structure of the Earth's climate system, to a set of Late Holocene paleoclimate proxy records covering the last two millennia. The emerging patterns obtained by our analysis are related to long-term changes in the dominant mode of atmospheric circulation in the region, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). By comparing the time-dependent inter-regional linkage structures of the obtained functional paleoclimate network representations to a recent multi-centennial NAO reconstruction, we identify co-variability between southern Greenland, Svalbard, and Fennoscandia as being indicative of a positive NAO phase, while connections from Greenland and Fennoscandia to central Europe are more pronounced during negative NAO phases. By drawing upon this correspondence, we use some key parameters of the evolving network structure to obtain a qualitative reconstruction of the NAO long-term variability over the entire Common Era (last 2000 years) using a linear regression model trained upon the existing shorter reconstruction.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasper G. Franke ◽  
Johannes P. Werner ◽  
Reik V. Donner

Abstract. Obtaining reliable reconstructions of long-term atmospheric circulation changes in the North Atlantic region presents a persistent challenge to contemporary paleoclimate research, which has been addressed by a multitude of recent studies. In order to contribute a novel methodological aspect to this active field, we apply here evolving functional network analysis, a recently developed tool for studying temporal changes of the spatial co-variability structure of the Earth's climate system, to a set of Late Holocene paleoclimate proxy records covering the last two millenia. The emerging patterns obtained by our analysis are intimately related to long-term changes in the dominant mode of atmospheric circulation in the region, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). By comparing the time-dependent inter-regional linkage structures of the obtained functional paleoclimate network representations to a recent multi-centennial NAO reconstruction, we identify strong co-variability between Southern Greenland, Svalbard and Fennoscandia as being indicative of a positive NAO phase, while connections from Greenland and Fennoscandia to Central Europe are more pronounced during negative NAO phases. By drawing upon this correspondence, we use some key parameters of the evolving network structure to obtain a qualitative reconstruction of the NAO long-term variability over the entire Common Era (last 2000 years) using a linear regression model trained upon the existing shorter reconstruction.


Author(s):  
G. A. Alexandrov ◽  
A. S. Ginzburg ◽  
G. S. Golitsyn

Natural variability of regional climatic conditions poses certain difficulties in detecting global climate change at a local scale. The question about the ratio between the contribution of human forcing, induced by the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, and the contribution of natural variability in atmospheric and oceanic circulation arises in each particular case. The purpose of the study reported in this article was to evaluate the contribution of the North Atlantic Oscillation to decrease in Moscows climate continentality during the period of 1951-2000. The results of this study show that a significant part of the decrease in continentality could be attributed to increase in the North Atlantic Oscillation index observed during this period.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Norin ◽  
Abhay Devasthale ◽  
Tristan S. L'Ecuyer

Abstract. For a high latitude country like Sweden snowfall is an important contributor to the regional water cycle. Furthermore, snowfall impacts surface properties, affects atmospheric thermodynamics, has implications for traffic and logistics management, disaster preparedness, and also impacts climate through changes in surface albedo and turbulent heat fluxes. For Sweden it has been shown that large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, or weather states, are important for precipitation variability. Although the link between atmospheric circulation patterns and precipitation has been investigated for rainfall there are no studied focused on the sensitivity of snowfall to weather states over Sweden. In this work we investigate the response of snowfall to eight selected weather states. These weather states consist of four dominant wind directions together with cyclonic and anti-cyclonic circulation patterns and enhanced positive and negative phases of the North Atlantic oscillation. The presented analysis is based on multiple data sources, such as ground-based radar measurements, satellite observations, spatially-interpolated in situ observations, and reanalysis data. The data from these sources converge to underline the sensitivity of falling snow over Sweden to the different weather states. In this paper we examine both average snowfall intensities and snowfall accumulations associated with the different weather states. It is shown that even though the heaviest snowfall intensities occur during conditions with winds from the southwest, the largest contribution to snowfall accumulation arrives from winds from the southeast. Large differences in snowfall due to variations in the North Atlantic oscillation are shown as well as a strong effect of cyclonic and anti-cyclonic circulation patterns. Satellite observations are used to reveal the vertical structures of snowfall during the different weather states.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Fabiano ◽  
Virna Meccia ◽  
Paolo Davini ◽  
Paolo Ghinassi ◽  
Susanna Corti

Abstract. Future wintertime atmospheric circulation changes in the Euro-Atlantic (EAT) and Pacific-North American (PNA) sectors are studied from a Weather Regimes perspective. The CMIP5 and CMIP6 historical simulations performance in reproducing the observed regimes is first evaluated, showing a general improvement of CMIP6 models, more evident for EAT. The circulation changes projected by CMIP5 and CMIP6 scenario simulations are analyzed in terms of the change in the frequency and persistence of the regimes. In the EAT sector, significant positive trends are found for the frequency and persistence of NAO+ for SSP245, SSP370 and SSP585 scenarios, with a concomitant decrease in the frequency of the Scandinavian Blocking and Atlantic Ridge regimes. For PNA, the Pacific Through regime shows a significant increase, while the Bering Ridge is predicted to decrease in all scenarios analyzed. The spread among the model responses is linked to different levels of warming in the Polar Stratosphere, the North Atlantic and the Arctic.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hera Guðlaugsdóttir ◽  
Jesper Sjolte ◽  
Árný Erla Sveinbjörnsdóttir ◽  
Hans Christian Steen-Larsen

Abstract Volcanic eruptions are important drivers of climate variability on both seasonal and multi-decadal time scales as a result of atmosphere-ocean coupling. While the direct response after equatorial eruptions emerges as the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation in the first two years after an eruption, less is known about high latitude northern hemisphere eruptions. In this study we assess the difference between equatorial and high latitude volcanic eruptions through the reconstructed atmospheric circulation and stable water isotope records of Greenland ice cores for the last millennia (1241-1979 CE), where the coupling mechanism behind the long-term response is addressed. The atmospheric circulation is studied through the four main modes of climate variability in the North Atlantic, the Atlantic Ridge, Scandinavian Blocking and the positive and negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. We report a difference in the atmospheric circulation response after high latitude eruptions compared to the response after equatorial eruptions, where the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Atlantic Ridge seem to be more associated with equatorial eruptions while the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation seems to follow high latitude eruptions. This response is present during the first five years and then again in years 8-12 after both equatorial and high latitude eruptions. Such a prolonged response is evidence of an ocean-atmosphere coupling that is initiated through different mechanisms, where we suspect sea ice to play a key role.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hera Guðlaugsdóttir ◽  
Jesper Sjolte ◽  
Árný Erla Sveinbjörnsdóttir ◽  
Hans Christian Steen-Larsen

Abstract. Volcanic eruptions are important drivers of climate variability on both seasonal and multi-decadal time scales as a result of atmosphere-ocean coupling. While the direct response after equatorial eruptions emerges as the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation in the first two years after an eruption, less is known about high latitude northern hemisphere eruptions. In this study we assess the difference between equatorial and high latitude volcanic eruptions through the reconstructed atmospheric circulation and stable water isotope records of Greenland ice cores for the last millennia (1241–1979 CE), where the coupling mechanism behind the long-term response is addressed. The atmospheric circulation is studied through the four main modes of climate variability in the North Atlantic, the Atlanti Ridge (AtR), Scandinavian Blocking (ScB) and the positive and negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO+/NAO−). We report a difference in the atmospheric circulation response after equatorial eruptions compared to the response after high latitude eruptions, where NAO+ and AtR seem to be more associated with equatorial eruptions while NAO- and ScB seems to follow high latitude eruptions. This response is present during the first five years and then again in years 8–12 after both equatorial and high latitude eruptions. Such a prolonged response is evidence of an ocean-atmosphere coupling that is initiated through different mechanisms, where we suspect sea ice to play a key role.


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