Local increase of anticyclonic wave activity over northern Eurasia under amplified Arctic warming

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Xue, Daokai, Lu, Jian, Sun, Lantao, Chen, Gang, Zhang, Yaocun
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Arctic; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1356503; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1356503; https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL072649

In an attempt to resolve the controversy as to whether Arctic sea ice loss leads to more mid-latitude extremes, a metric of finite-amplitude wave activity is adopted to quantify the midlatitude wave activity and its change during the observed period of the drastic Arctic sea ice decline in both ERA Interim reanalysis data and a set of AMIP-type of atmospheric model experiments. Here, neither the experiment with the trend in the SST or that with the declining trend of Arctic sea ice can simulate the sizable midlatitude-wide reduction in the total wave activity (A e ) observed in the reanalysis, leaving its explanation to the atmospheric internal variability. On the other hand, both the diagnostics of the flux of the local wave activity and the model experiments lend evidence to a possible linkage between the sea ice loss near the Barents and Kara seas and the increasing trend of anticyclonic local wave activity over the northern part of the central Eurasia and the associated impacts on the frequency of temperature extremes.