Low clouds suppress Arctic air formation and amplify high-latitude continental winter warming
Future-greenhouse simulations, and evidence of frost-intolerant species in high-latitude continental interiors during past equable climates, show significantly amplified warming at high latitudes over land in winter, with physical mechanisms that are still not understood. We show that the process of...
| Published in: | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
National Academy of Sciences
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4577187/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26324919 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1510937112 |
| Summary: | Future-greenhouse simulations, and evidence of frost-intolerant species in high-latitude continental interiors during past equable climates, show significantly amplified warming at high latitudes over land in winter, with physical mechanisms that are still not understood. We show that the process of Arctic air formation, in which a high-latitude maritime air mass is advected over a continent, cooled at the surface, and transformed into a much colder continental polar air mass, may change dramatically and even be suppressed in warmer climates due to an increase in the duration of optically thick low clouds. This leads to two-degree warming over the continent in response to each degree of warming over the nearby ocean, possibly explaining both past and future continental warming. |
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