Identification

Title

Winter weather patterns over Northern Eurasia and Arctic sea ice loss

Abstract

Using NCEP–NCAR reanalysis and Japanese 25-yr Reanalysis (JRA-25) winter daily (1 December–28 February) data for the period 1979–2012, this paper reveals the leading pattern of winter daily 850-hPa wind variability over northern Eurasia from a dynamic perspective. The results show that the leading pattern accounts for 18% of the total anomalous kinetic energy and consists of two subpatterns: the dipole and the tripole wind patterns. The dipole wind pattern does not exhibit any apparent trend. The tripole wind pattern, however, has displayed significant trends since the late 1980s. The negative phase of the tripole wind pattern corresponds to an anomalous anticyclone over northern Eurasia during winter, as well as two anomalous cyclones occurring over southern Europe and in the mid- to high latitudes of East Asia. These anomalous cyclones in turn lead to enhanced winter precipitation in these two regions, as well as negative surface temperature anomalies over the mid- to high latitudes of Asia. The intensity of the tripole wind pattern and the frequency of its extreme negative phase are significantly correlated with autumn Arctic sea ice anomalies. Simulation experiments further demonstrate that the winter atmospheric response to Arctic sea ice decrease is dynamically consistent with the observed trend in the tripole wind pattern over the past 24 winters, which is one of the causes of the observed declining winter surface air temperature trend over Central and East Asia. The results of this study also imply that East Asia may experience more frequent and/or intense winter extreme weather events in association with the loss of Arctic sea ice.

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document

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http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7nv9k4w

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Dataset language

eng

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geoscientificInformation

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publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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publication

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2013-11-01T00:00:00Z

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Copyright 2013 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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OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

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opensky@ucar.edu

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http://opensky.ucar.edu/

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