A stratospheric pathway linking a colder Siberia to Barents-Kara Sea sea ice loss

Previous studies have extensively investigated the impact of Arctic sea ice anomalies on the midlatitude circulation and associated surface climate in winter. However, there is an ongoing scientific debate regarding whether and how sea ice retreat results in the observed cold anomaly over the adjacent continents. We present a robust "cold Siberia" pattern in the winter following sea ice loss over the Barents-Kara seas in late autumn in an advanced atmospheric general circulation model, with a well-resolved stratosphere. Additional targeted experiments reveal that the stratospheric response to sea ice forcing is crucial in the development of cold conditions over Siberia, indicating the dominant role of the stratospheric pathway compared with the direct response within the troposphere. In particular, the downward influence of the stratospheric circulation anomaly significantly intensifies the ridge near the Ural Mountains and the trough over East Asia. The persistently intensified ridge and trough favor more frequent cold air outbreaks and colder winters over Siberia. This finding has important implications for improving seasonal climate prediction of midlatitude cold events. The results also suggest that the model performance in representing the stratosphere-troposphere coupling could be an important source of the discrepancy between recent studies.

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Copyright 2018 Author(s)s. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science [4, 7], doi:10.1126/sciadv.aat6025.


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Author Zhang, Pengfei
Wu, Yutian
Simpson, Isla R.
Smith, Karen L.
Zhang, Xiangdong
De, Bithi
Callaghan, Patrick
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2018-07-25T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T19:20:41.330777
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:21939
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Zhang, Pengfei, Wu, Yutian, Simpson, Isla R., Smith, Karen L., Zhang, Xiangdong, De, Bithi, Callaghan, Patrick. (2018). A stratospheric pathway linking a colder Siberia to Barents-Kara Sea sea ice loss. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7rr223g. Accessed 10 February 2025.

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