Impact of the Arctic oscillation from March on summertime sea ice ...

• Main Authors: Lim, Young-Kwon, Wu, Dong L., Kim, Kyu-Myong, Lee, Jae N.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: IOP 2022
• Subjects: Arctic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/m29tud-onr4; https://mdsoar.org/handle/11603/32768

Current understanding of the cold season Arctic oscillation (AO) impact on the summertime sea ice is revisited in this study by analyzing the role from each month. Earlier studies examined the prolonged AO impact using a smooth average over 1–2 seasons (e.g. December–March, December–April, March–May), ignoring large month-to-month AO variability. This study finds that the March AO is most influential on the summertime sea ice loss. First, the March AO is most highly negative-correlated with the AO in summer. Secondly, surface energy budget, sea level pressure, and low-tropospheric circulation exhibit that their time-lagged responses to the positive (negative) phase of the March AO grow with time, transitioning to the patterns associated with the negative (positive) phase of the AO that induces sea ice decrease (increase) in summer. Time evolution of the surface energy budget explains the growth of the sea ice concentration anomaly in summer, and a warming-to-cooling transition in October. The regional ...