Abstract
Arctic sea ice exhibits rapid reductions and large fluctuations during recent decades in conjunction with a warming climate. Arctic sea ice shows a prominent seasonal cycle with the maximum extent in spring and the minimum extent in fall. In this study a suite of modeling experiments, which were solely forced with observed time-varying sea-ice concentration for spring 1979 to 2008 was conducted using NCAR’s Community Atmosphere Model to identify sea ice impacts on extratropical storms and associated surface climate parameters when they at the peak of their seasonal variability. Storms are the linkage between the large-scale circulation changes, forced by Arctic sea ice and local extreme weather events through strong winds, high precipitation, and high/low air temperature. In this study, a storm identification and tracking algorithm indicates that reduced sea-ice cover enhances Arctic storm activity. As a consequence, surface climate parameters such as surface air temperature (SAT) and precipitation increases in spring over the Arctic. The changes in the Arctic have a direct and indirect effect on the extratropical storm activity over the mid-latitudes. In contrast to the Arctic, storm activity weakens over Eurasia in the years with less sea ice. Further analysis of the surface climate indicates a warmer and dryer Eurasia for years with reduced sea ice.
Highlights
The Arctic has undergone dramatic changes over the recent decade in conjunction with a warming climate
To study sea ice induced changes in storm activity, including the mean number of storm performed based on the years with detrended sea ice extent outside a threshold of ± 0.5 standard trajectories, mean intensity and mean duration, a probability density function (PDF) analysis was deviations (σ) (Figure 3)
We have shown that reduced Arctic sea ice extent causes substantial anomalies in storm activity and surface climate parameters
Summary
The Arctic has undergone dramatic changes over the recent decade in conjunction with a warming climate. The Arctic Ocean sea ice extent reaches its maximum in spring and minimum during the fall, mostly in March and September, respectively. Some of the record low values of sea ice extent in September have been recorded in the last decade. There has been a lot of studies investigating the effect of low sea ice in summer and fall. The Arctic Ocean has lost 40% of its multiyear ice between 2004 and 2009 [1]. In 2007, the year with the second lowest sea ice area during the satellite record, the highest mean SAT on record was observed over the Arctic [2]. The overall pattern of warming is generally characterized by lower SAT anomalies in lower latitude regions and higher
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