El Niño Suppresses Antarctic Warming

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Bertler, Nancy A. N., Barrett, Peter J., Mayewski, Paul Andrew, Fogt, Ryan L., Kreutz, Karl J., Shulmeister, James
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: DigitalCommons@UMaine 2004
• Subjects: Global warming; Climate Change; Antarctic warming; El Nino; Glaciology; Atmospheric Sciences; Climate; Earth Sciences; Meteorology; Amundsen Sea; Antarc*; Antarctic; Antarctica; McMurdo Dry Valleys; Ross Sea; Southern Ocean; West Antarctica
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/ers_facpub/197; https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GL020749; https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/context/ers_facpub/article/1197/viewcontent/ElNinoSuppressesAntarcticWarming.pdf

Here we present new isotope records derived from snow samples from the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica and re-analysis data of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ERA-40) to explain the connection between the warming of the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean [Jacka and Budd, 1998; Jacobs et al., 2002] and the current cooling of the terrestrial Ross Sea region [Doran et al., 2002a]. Our analysis confirms previous findings that the warming is linked to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) [Kwok and Comiso, 2002a, 2002b; Carleton, 2003; Ribera and Mann, 2003; Turner, 2004], and provides new evidence that the terrestrial cooling is caused by a simultaneous ENSO driven change in atmospheric circulation,sourced in the Amundsen Sea and West Antarctica.