The Arctic Winter Sea Ice Quadrupole Revisited

• Published in: Climate Dynamics
• Main Authors: Close, Sally, Houssais, Marie-Noëlle, Herbaut, Christophe
• Other Authors: Variabilité de l'Océan et de la Glace de mer (VOG), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union 7th Framework Programme (FP7 2007–13) under Grant Agreement 308299, NACLIM Project., European Project: 308299,EC:FP7:ENV,FP7-ENV-2012-two-stage,NACLIM(2012)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: Interdecadal variability; Interannual variability; Sea ice; Arctic; [SDU.STU.CL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Climatology; Greenland; Labrador Sea; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01452684; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01452684v2/document; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01452684v2/file/jcli-d-16-0506.1.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0506.1

International audience The dominant mode of Arctic sea ice variability in winter is often maintained to be represented by a quadrupole structure, comprising poles of one sign in the Okhotsk, Greenland and Barents Seas, and opposing sign in the Labrador and Bering Seas, forced by the North Atlantic Oscillation. In this study, we revisit this large-scale winter mode of sea ice variability using microwave satellite and reanalysis data. We find that the quadrupole structure does not describe a significant covariance relationship amongst all four component poles. The first empirical orthogonal mode, explaining covariability in the sea ice of the Barents, Greenland and Okhotsk Seas, is linked to the Siberian High, whilst the North Atlantic Oscillation exhibits a significant relationship only with the Labrador Sea ice, which varies independently as the second mode. The principal components are characterised by a strong low-frequency signal; the satellite record still being short, statistical analyses should thus be applied cautiously.