Arctic Winter Temperature Variations Correlated With ENSO Are Dependent on Coincidental Sea Ice Changes

Abstract

AbstractThe El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a well‐known modulator of global climate and is correlated with observed temperature variations over the Barents‐Kara Sea (BKS). However, the origins and causality of this observed correlation are unclear. Here, we show that historical climate model simulations, on average, fail to reproduce the observed ENSO‐BKS correlation. However, individual realizations do show a relationship as observed. We find that the internal variability of BKS sea ice is the main factor between realizations that reproduce the ENSO‐BKS correlation and those that do not. Furthermore, we find that atmospheric model simulations prescribed with observed sea ice variability reproduce the ENSO‐BKS correlation. We conclude that ENSO‐correlated winter BKS temperature variations are dependent on coincidental sea ice changes.