Impacts of Arctic sea-ice and continental snow-cover changes on atmospheric winter teleconnections

Extreme winters in Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes in recent years have been connected to declining Arctic sea ice and continental snow-cover changes in autumn following modified planetary waves in the coupled troposphere-stratosphere system. Through analyses of reanalysis data and model simulatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Handorf, Dörthe, Jaiser, Ralf, Dethloff, Klaus, Rinke, Annette, Cohen, Judah
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: Wiley 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/37522/
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/37522/1/handorf_etal_2015GL063203_rev1_with_fig.pdf
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/37522/2/Handorf_etal_grl2015_20150306_rev1_supp.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.45180
https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.45180.d001
https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.45180.d002
Description
Summary:Extreme winters in Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes in recent years have been connected to declining Arctic sea ice and continental snow-cover changes in autumn following modified planetary waves in the coupled troposphere-stratosphere system. Through analyses of reanalysis data and model simulations with a state-of-the-art atmospheric general circulation model we investigate the mechanisms between Arctic Ocean sea ice and Northern Hemisphere land snow-cover changes in autumn and atmospheric teleconnections in the following winter. The observed negative Arctic Oscillation in response to sea-ice cover changes is too weakly reproduced by the model. The planetary wave train structures over the Pacific and North America region are well simulated. The strengthening and westward shift of the Siberian high pressure system in response to sea-ice and snow-cover changes is underestimated compared to ERA-Interim data due to deficits in the simulated changes in planetary wave propagation characteristics.