The December 2015 North Pole Warming Event and the Increasing Occurrence of Such Events
In late December 2015, widespread media interest revolved around forecasts that the surface air temperature at the North Pole would rise above freezing. Although there has been significant interest in the enhanced warming that is occurring at high northern latitudes, a process known as arctic amplif...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5157030 2023-05-15T15:06:01+02:00 The December 2015 North Pole Warming Event and the Increasing Occurrence of Such Events Moore, G. W. K. 2016-12-15 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5157030/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27976745 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39084 en eng Nature Publishing Group http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5157030/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27976745 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep39084 Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Article Text 2016 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39084 2016-12-25T01:07:39Z In late December 2015, widespread media interest revolved around forecasts that the surface air temperature at the North Pole would rise above freezing. Although there has been significant interest in the enhanced warming that is occurring at high northern latitudes, a process known as arctic amplification, remarkably little is known about these midwinter warming events at the pole including their frequency, duration and magnitude as well as the environmental conditions responsible for their occurrence. Here we use buoy and radiosonde data along with operational weather forecasts and atmospheric reanalyses to show that such events are associated with surface cyclones near the pole as well as a highly perturbed polar vortex. They occur once or twice each decade with the earliest identified event taking place in 1959. In addition, the warmest midwinter temperatures at the North Pole have been increasing at a rate that is twice as large as that for mean midwinter temperatures at the pole. It is argued that this enhanced trend is consistent with the loss of winter sea ice from the Nordic Seas that moves the reservoir of warm air over this region northwards making it easier for weather systems to transport this heat polewards. Text Arctic Nordic Seas North Pole Sea ice PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Midwinter ENVELOPE(139.931,139.931,-66.690,-66.690) North Pole Scientific Reports 6 1 |
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English |
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Article Moore, G. W. K. The December 2015 North Pole Warming Event and the Increasing Occurrence of Such Events |
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Article |
description |
In late December 2015, widespread media interest revolved around forecasts that the surface air temperature at the North Pole would rise above freezing. Although there has been significant interest in the enhanced warming that is occurring at high northern latitudes, a process known as arctic amplification, remarkably little is known about these midwinter warming events at the pole including their frequency, duration and magnitude as well as the environmental conditions responsible for their occurrence. Here we use buoy and radiosonde data along with operational weather forecasts and atmospheric reanalyses to show that such events are associated with surface cyclones near the pole as well as a highly perturbed polar vortex. They occur once or twice each decade with the earliest identified event taking place in 1959. In addition, the warmest midwinter temperatures at the North Pole have been increasing at a rate that is twice as large as that for mean midwinter temperatures at the pole. It is argued that this enhanced trend is consistent with the loss of winter sea ice from the Nordic Seas that moves the reservoir of warm air over this region northwards making it easier for weather systems to transport this heat polewards. |
format |
Text |
author |
Moore, G. W. K. |
author_facet |
Moore, G. W. K. |
author_sort |
Moore, G. W. K. |
title |
The December 2015 North Pole Warming Event and the Increasing Occurrence of Such Events |
title_short |
The December 2015 North Pole Warming Event and the Increasing Occurrence of Such Events |
title_full |
The December 2015 North Pole Warming Event and the Increasing Occurrence of Such Events |
title_fullStr |
The December 2015 North Pole Warming Event and the Increasing Occurrence of Such Events |
title_full_unstemmed |
The December 2015 North Pole Warming Event and the Increasing Occurrence of Such Events |
title_sort |
december 2015 north pole warming event and the increasing occurrence of such events |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5157030/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27976745 https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39084 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(139.931,139.931,-66.690,-66.690) |
geographic |
Arctic Midwinter North Pole |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Midwinter North Pole |
genre |
Arctic Nordic Seas North Pole Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic Nordic Seas North Pole Sea ice |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5157030/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27976745 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep39084 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39084 |
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Scientific Reports |
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6 |
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1 |
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