Winter Weather Patterns over Northern Eurasia and Arctic Sea Ice Loss

Using NCEPNCAR reanalysis and Japanese 25-yr Reanalysis (JRA-25) winter daily (1 December28 February) data for the period 19792012, 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 patt...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly weather review 2013-11, Vol.141 (11), p.3786-3800
Main Authors: BINGYI WU, HANDORF, Dörthe, DETHLOFF, Klaus, RINKE, Annette, AIXUE HU
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air temperature
Atmosphere
Climatology
Cold
Cyclones
Earth, ocean, space
East Asia
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Extreme weather
Kinetic energy
Latitude
Marine
Meteorology
Sea ice
Snow
Surface temperature
Temperature
Trends
Weather
Weather patterns
Wind
Winter
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Using NCEPNCAR reanalysis and Japanese 25-yr Reanalysis (JRA-25) winter daily (1 December28 February) data for the period 19792012, 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.
ISSN:0027-0644
1520-0493
DOI:10.1175/MWR-D-13-00046.1