El Niño suppresses Antarctic warming

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Bertler, Nancy A. N., Barrett, Peter J., Mayewski, Paul A., Kreutz, Ryan L., Shulmeister, James
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2004
• Subjects: Geosciences; Multidisciplinary; Geology; 05 Environmental Sciences; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; Ross Sea; West Antarctica; Amundsen Sea; McMurdo Dry Valleys; Pacific; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:190778

Here we present new isotope records derived from snow samples from the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica and re-analysis data of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ERA-40) to explain the connection between the warming of the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean [ Jacka and Budd, 1998 Jacobs et al., 2002 ] and the current cooling of the terrestrial Ross Sea region [ Doran et al., 2002a ]. Our analysis confirms previous findings that the warming is linked to the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) [ Kwok and Comiso, 2002a , 2002b; Carleton, 2003 Ribera and Mann, 2003 Turner, 2004 ], and provides new evidence that the terrestrial cooling is caused by a simultaneous ENSO driven change in atmospheric circulation, sourced in the Amundsen Sea and West Antarctica.