The Arctic and Polar cells act on the Arctic sea ice variation

The Arctic sea ice has undergone a substantial long-term decline with superimposed interannual sea ice minimum (SIM) events over the last decades. This study focuses on the relationship between atmospheric circulation and the SIM events in the Arctic region. Four reanalysis products and simulations...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography
Main Authors: Qian, Weihong, Wu, Kaijun, Chen, Deliang
Other Authors: Qian, WH (reprint author), Peking Univ, Sch Phys, Dept Atmospher & Ocean Sci, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China., Peking Univ, Sch Phys, Dept Atmospher & Ocean Sci, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China., Univ Gothenburg, Dept Earth Sci, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Format: Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: TELLUS SERIES A-DYNAMIC METEOROLOGY AND OCEANOGRAPHY 2015
Subjects:
Arctic
Polar cell
Arctic cell
sea ice minimum
stream function
LOW-TEMPERATURE EVENTS
BETA-ADVECTION MODEL
REANALYSIS PROJECT
ERA-INTERIM
CIRCULATION
COVER
CHINA
AMPLIFICATION
VARIABILITY
EXTENT
Sea ice
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11897/421088
https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusa.v67.27692
Description
Summary:The Arctic sea ice has undergone a substantial long-term decline with superimposed interannual sea ice minimum (SIM) events over the last decades. This study focuses on the relationship between atmospheric circulation and the SIM events in the Arctic region. Four reanalysis products and simulations of one climate model are first analysed to confirm the existence of the Arctic cell, a meridional circulation cell to the north of 80 degrees N, by visualising through the mean streamline and mean mass stream function in the Northern Hemisphere. Dynamical analyses of zonally averaged stationary eddy heat and momentum fluxes as well as the global precipitation rate data further confirm its existence. Finally, we found that the change in the Arctic sea ice concentration lags the variations of the descending air flow intensity associated with the Polar and Arctic cells, by about 2 months for the climatic annual cycle and about 10 months for the interannual anomaly. Five Arctic SIM events during the last three decades support this relationship. These results have implications for understanding the relationship between atmospheric circulation and sea-ice variations, and for predicting the Arctic sea ice changes. Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDA05090407]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [41375073]; Swedish strategic research area MERGE; Swedish strategic research area BECC; Swedish Research Council SCI(E) ARTICLE qianwh@pku.edu.cn 1-18 67

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