On the observed connection between Arctic sea ice and Eurasian snow in relation to the winter North Atlantic Oscillation

Sea ice concentration (SIC) in the eastern Arctic and snow cover extent (SCE) over central Eurasia in late autumn have been proposed as potential predictors of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Here, maximum covariance analysis is used to further investigate the links between autumn SIC i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental Research Letters
Main Authors: Santolaria-Otín, María, García Serrano, Javier, Ménégoz, Martin, Bech, Joan
Other Authors: Barcelona Supercomputing Center
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2020
Subjects:
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria agroalimentària::Ciències de la terra i de la vida
Climatology
Sea ice
Sea ice > Arctic regions
Atmospheric circulation
North Atlantic Oscillation
Teleconnection
Snow cover
Climatologia
Arctic
Guillaume
North Atlantic
North Atlantic oscillation
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2117/337096
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abad57
Description
Summary:Sea ice concentration (SIC) in the eastern Arctic and snow cover extent (SCE) over central Eurasia in late autumn have been proposed as potential predictors of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Here, maximum covariance analysis is used to further investigate the links between autumn SIC in the Barents-Kara Seas (BK) and SCE over Eurasia (EUR) with winter sea level pressure (SLP) in the North Atlantic-European region over 1979-2019. As shown by previous studies, the most significant covariability mode of SIC/BK is found for November. Similarly, the covariability with SCE/EUR is only statistically significant for November, not for October. Changes in temperature, specific humidity, SIC/BK and SCE/EUR in November are associated with a circulation anomaly over the Ural-Siberian region that appears as a precursor of the winter NAO; where the advection of climatological temperature/humidity by the anomalous flow is related to SCE/EUR and SIC/BK anomalies. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commissions H2020 projects APPLICATE (GA 727862) and PRIMAVERA (GA 641727), and the ANR Belmont RACE project (ANR-20-AORS-0002). JG-S has been supported by the Ramón y Cajal programme (RYC-2016-21181). MM has been supported by the MINECO project VOLCADEC (CGL201570177-R). JB has been supported by MINECO projects CGL2016-81828-REDT (AEI) and RTI2018-098693-B643-C32 (AEI). The authors thank Hervé Douville (CNRM/Météo-France) and Guillaume Gastineau (LOCEAN/IPSL, France) for useful discussions, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights. Peer Reviewed Postprint (published version)

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