Sensitivity and nonlinearity of Eurasian winter temperature response to recent Arctic sea ice loss

SUI Cuijuan; ZHANG Zhanhai; YU Lejiang; LI Yi; SONG Mirong

doi:10.1007/s13131-017-1018-y

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Article Navigation > Acta Oceanologica Sinica > 2017 > 36(8): 52-58

SUI Cuijuan, ZHANG Zhanhai, YU Lejiang, LI Yi, SONG Mirong. Sensitivity and nonlinearity of Eurasian winter temperature response to recent Arctic sea ice loss[J]. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 2017, 36(8): 52-58. doi: 10.1007/s13131-017-1018-y

Citation:

SUI Cuijuan, ZHANG Zhanhai, YU Lejiang, LI Yi, SONG Mirong. Sensitivity and nonlinearity of Eurasian winter temperature response to recent Arctic sea ice loss[J]. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 2017, 36(8): 52-58. doi: 10.1007/s13131-017-1018-y

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Sensitivity and nonlinearity of Eurasian winter temperature response to recent Arctic sea ice loss

doi: 10.1007/s13131-017-1018-y

1.
College of Physical and Environmental Oceanography, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China;National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center, Beijing 100081, China
2.
College of Physical and Environmental Oceanography, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China
3.
Polar Research Institute of China, Shanghai 200129, China
4.
National Marine Environmental Forecasting Center, Beijing 100081, China
5.
Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China

Received Date: 2016-06-12

Abstract

Abstract

The recent decline in the Arctic sea ice has coincided with more cold winters in Eurasia. It has been hypothesized that the Arctic sea ice loss is causing more mid-latitude cold extremes and cold winters, yet there is lack of consensus in modeling studies on the impact of Arctic sea ice loss. Here we conducted modeling experiments with Community Atmosphere Model Version 5 (CAM5) to investigate the sensitivity and linearity of Eurasian winter temperature response to the Atlantic sector and Pacific sector of the Arctic sea ice loss. Our experiments indicate that the Arctic sea ice reduction can significantly affect the atmospheric circulation by strengthening the Siberian High, exciting the stationary Rossby wave train, and weakening the polar jet stream, which in turn induce the cooling in Eurasia. The temperature decreases by more than 1℃ in response to the ice loss in the Atlantic sector and the cooling is less and more shifts southward in response to the ice loss in the Pacific sector. More interestingly, sea ice loss in the Atlantic and Pacific sectors together barely induces cold temperatures in Eurasia, suggesting the nonlinearity of the atmospheric response to the Arctic sea ice loss.
- cold winter,
- CAM5,
- sensitivity experiment,
- jet stream

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References(38)

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