Exceptional Air Mass Transport and Dynamical Drivers of an Extreme Wintertime Arctic Warm Event

At the turn of the years 2015/2016, maximum surface temperature in the Arctic reached record‐high values, exceeding the melting point, which led to a strong reduction of the Arctic sea ice extent in the middle of the cold season. Here we show, using a Lagrangian method, that a combination of very di...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2017-12, Vol.44 (23), p.12,028-12,036
Main Authors: Binder, Hanin, Boettcher, Maxi, Grams, Christian M., Joos, Hanna, Pfahl, Stephan, Wernli, Heini
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adiabatic
Adiabatic flow
Air mass transport
Air masses
Anticyclones
Arctic
Arctic sea ice
Ascent
Belt conveyors
Cold season
Compression
Cyclones
diabatic processes
Dynamics
Earth Sciences
extreme weather
Fluxes
Ice environments
Lagrangian perspective
Levels
Low-level jets
Mass transport
Melting point
Sciences of the Universe
Sea ice
sea ice melt
Surface fluxes
Surface temperature
Transport
Transport processes
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Summary:At the turn of the years 2015/2016, maximum surface temperature in the Arctic reached record‐high values, exceeding the melting point, which led to a strong reduction of the Arctic sea ice extent in the middle of the cold season. Here we show, using a Lagrangian method, that a combination of very different airstreams contributed to this event: (i) warm low‐level air of subtropical origin, (ii) initially cold low‐level air of polar origin heated by surface fluxes, and (iii) strongly descending air heated by adiabatic compression. The poleward transport of these warm airstreams occurred along an intense low‐level jet between a series of cyclones and a quasi‐stationary anticyclone. The complex 3‐D configuration that enabled this transport was facilitated by continuous warm conveyor belt ascent into the upper part of the anticyclone. This study emphasizes the combined role of multiple transport processes and transient synoptic‐scale dynamics for establishing an extreme Arctic warm event. Key Points A complex chain of extraordinary dynamical and physical processes resulted in an extreme wintertime Arctic warm event The warm air came from three different regions and experienced fundamentally different temperature evolutions before arriving in the Arctic Latent heating in ascending airstreams contributed to the setup of an unusual weather pattern that allowed the warm air to reach the Arctic
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1002/2017GL075841