Identification

Title

Reduced risk of North American cold extremes due to continued Arctic Sea ice loss

Abstract

In early January 2014, an Arctic air outbreak brought extreme cold and heavy snowfall to central and eastern North America, causing widespread disruption and monetary losses. The media extensively reported the cold snap, including debate on whether human-induced climate change was partly responsible. Related to this, one particular hypothesis garnered considerable attention: that rapid Arctic sea ice loss may be increasing the risk of cold extremes in the midlatitudes. Here we use large ensembles of model simulations to explore how the risk of North American daily cold extremes is anticipated to change in the future, in response to increases in greenhouse gases and the component of that response solely due to Arctic sea ice loss. Specifically, we examine the changing probability of daily cold extremes as (un)common as the 7 January 2014 event. Projected increases in greenhouse gases decrease the likelihood of North American cold extremes in the future. Days as cold or colder than 7 January 2014 are still projected to occur in the mid-twenty-first century (2030-49), albeit less frequently than in the late twentieth century (1980-99). However, such events will cease to occur by the late twenty-first century (2080-99), assuming greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated. Continued Arctic sea ice loss is a major driver of decreased--not increased--North America cold extremes. Projected Arctic sea ice loss alone reduces the odds of such an event by one-quarter to one-third by the mid-twenty-first century, and to zero (or near zero) by the late twenty-first century.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7mg7qq9

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

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originating controlled vocabulary

title

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reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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date type

publication

effective date

2015-09-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2015 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

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None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact