A possible relationship between the Arctic Oscillation Index and atmosphere-triggered interannual long-wavelength gravitational variations

• Main Authors: G. Lentini, M. Maugeri, R. Sabadini, R. Devoti, A. Albertella
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Compositori 2006
• Subjects: atmospheric movements; atmospheric pressure; gravity; Settore FIS/06 - Fisica per il Sistema Terra e Il Mezzo Circumterrestre; Settore GEO/10 - Geofisica della Terra Solida; Arctic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2434/29474; https://doi.org/10.1393/ncc/i2005-10193-2

A host of geophysical processes contribute to temporal variations in the low-degree zonal harmonics of the Earth's gravity field. The present paper focuses on atmosphere-based mass redistributions using global surface pressure data from the NOAA Climate Diagnostics Center for the period 1980-2002. We computed atmosphere-triggered temporal variations of the Earth's low-degree zonal gravitational coefficients J(i) (l=2:4). Such atmosphere-triggered Delta J(i)(t) are compared with the Arctic Oscillation Index (AOI) and with the observed Delta J(i) (t) computed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) so as to investigate a possible coupling. We show that there is a significant agreement between the AOI and atmosphere-triggered Delta J(i)(t), as well as a particularly interesting correlation between the winter Delta J(i)(t) series and the AOI active season series.