Identification

Title

Observed Antarctic interannual climate variability and tropical linkages

Abstract

This study reviews the mechanisms associated with Antarctic–tropical climate linkages and presents new analyses of the seasonality and spatial patterns of tropical climate signals in the Antarctic for the late 1950s to the present. Tropical climate signals are primarily communicated to the Antarctic via the Pacific–South America (PSA) pattern and the southern annular mode (SAM). The impacts of these circulation patterns and their tropical linkages are evident in regressions of seasonally stratified Antarctic station temperature data and annually resolved ice core records on global fields of sea surface temperature, sea level pressure, and precipitation. Temperature and ice core anomalies in the Antarctic Peninsula region and adjoining areas of West Antarctica are significantly impacted by the PSA, interpreted as a Rossby wave train driven by anomalous tropical deep convection during ENSO events. This pattern is most evident in the austral spring, consistent with recent studies, suggesting that atmospheric conditions for Rossby wave propagation are most favorable during this season. During austral summer at the peak of the ENSO cycle, temperature anomalies at East Antarctic coastal stations exhibit significant correlations with tropical Pacific anomalies. This linkage reflects the influence of anomalous tropical heating on the position and strength of the subtropical jets and is consistent with changes in eddy momentum fluxes that alter the mean meridional circulation associated with the SAM. Of the ice cores that exhibit tropical linkages, most tend to be associated with the PSA teleconnection. The implications of the study’s findings for understanding Antarctic climate variability and climate change from seasonal to decadal time scales are also discussed.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d737799w

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2012-06-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

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Use constraints

Copyright 2012 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.

Limitations on public access

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