How does the SST variability over the western North Atlantic Ocean control Arctic warming over the Barents–Kara Seas?

• Published in: Environmental Research Letters
• Main Authors: Ok Jung, Mi-Kyung Sung, Kazutoshi Sato, Young-Kwon Lim, Seong-Joong Kim, Eun-Hyuk Baek, Jee-Hoon Jeong, Baek-Min Kim
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: IOP Publishing 2017
• Subjects: Arctic warming; Stationary Wave Model; transient eddy vorticity forcing; Western North Atlantic Ocean; Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering; TD1-1066; Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Science; Q; Physics; QC1-999; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa5f3b; https://doaj.org/article/7dfa5e7305a6434b92cbdbb3c5131bbc

Arctic warming over the Barents–Kara Seas and its impacts on the mid-latitude circulations have been widely discussed. However, the specific mechanism that brings the warming still remains unclear. In this study, a possible cause of the regional Arctic warming over the Barents–Kara Seas during early winter (October–December) is suggested. We found that warmer sea surface temperature anomalies over the western North Atlantic Ocean (WNAO) modulate the transient eddies overlying the oceanic frontal region. The altered transient eddy vorticity flux acts as a source for the Rossby wave straddling the western North Atlantic and the Barents–Kara Seas (Scandinavian pattern), and induces a significant warm advection, increasing surface and lower-level temperature over the Eurasian sector of the Arctic Ocean. The importance of the sea surface temperature anomalies over the WNAO and subsequent transient eddy forcing over the WNAO was also supported by both specially designed simple model experiments and general circulation model experiments.