Observed winter Barents Kara Sea ice variations induce prominent sub-decadal variability and a multi-decadal trend in the Warm Arctic Cold Eurasia pattern

• Published in: Environmental Research Letters
• Main Authors: Ghosh, Rohit, Manzini, Elisa, Gao, Yongqi, Gastineau, Guillaume, Cherchi, Annalisa, Frankignoul, Claude, Liang, Yu-Chiao, Kwon, Young-Oh, Suo, Lingling, Tyrlis, Evangelos, Mecking, Jennifer, Tian, Tian, Zhang, Ying, Matei, Daniela
• Other Authors: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Department of Meteorology Reading, University of Reading (UOR), Alfred Wegener Institute Potsdam, Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung = Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research = Institut Alfred-Wegener pour la recherche polaire et marine (AWI), Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft = Helmholtz Association-Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft = Helmholtz Association, Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center Bergen (NERSC), Océan et variabilité du climat (VARCLIM), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), CNR Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (ISAC), National Research Council of Italy, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), National Taiwan University Taiwan (NTU), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOC), University of Southampton, Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Nansen-Zhu International Research Center (NZC), Institute of Atmospheric Physics Beijing (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing (CAS)-Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing (CAS), European Project: 727852,Blue-Action(2016)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2024
• Subjects: [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Arctic; Kara Sea; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04498510; https://hal.science/hal-04498510/document; https://hal.science/hal-04498510/file/Ghosh_2024_Environ._Res._Lett._19_024018.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad1c1a

International audience Abstract The observed winter Barents-Kara Sea (BKS) sea ice concentration (SIC) has shown a close association with the second empirical orthogonal function (EOF) mode of Eurasian winter surface air temperature (SAT) variability, known as Warm Arctic Cold Eurasia (WACE) pattern. However, the potential role of BKS SIC on this WACE pattern of variability and on its long-term trend remains elusive. Here, we show that from 1979 to 2022, the winter BKS SIC and WACE association is most prominent and statistically significant for the variability at the sub-decadal time scale for 5–6 years. We also show the critical role of the multi-decadal trend in the principal component of the WACE mode of variability for explaining the overall Eurasian winter temperature trend over the same period. Furthermore, a large multi-model ensemble of atmosphere-only experiments from 1979 to 2014, with and without the observed Arctic SIC forcing, suggests that the BKS SIC variations induce this observed sub-decadal variability and the multi-decadal trend in the WACE. Additionally, we analyse the model simulated first or the leading EOF mode of Eurasian winter SAT variability, which in observations, closely relates to the Arctic Oscillation (AO). We find a weaker association of this mode to AO and a statistically significant positive trend in our ensemble simulation, opposite to that found in observation. This contrasting nature reflects excessive hemispheric warming in the models, partly contributed by the modelled Arctic Sea ice loss.