Abstract
The Arctic sea ice has undergone a substantial long-term decline with superimposed interannual sea ice minimum (SIM) events over the last decades. This study focuses on the relationship between atmospheric circulation and the SIM events in the Arctic region. Four reanalysis products and simulations of one climate model are first analysed to confirm the existence of the Arctic cell, a meridional circulation cell to the north of 80°N, by visualising through the mean streamline and mean mass stream function in the Northern Hemisphere. Dynamical analyses of zonally averaged stationary eddy heat and momentum fluxes as well as the global precipitation rate data further confirm its existence. Finally, we found that the change in the Arctic sea ice concentration lags the variations of the descending air flow intensity associated with the Polar and Arctic cells, by about 2 months for the climatic annual cycle and about 10 months for the interannual anomaly. Five Arctic SIM events during the last three decades support this relationship. These results have implications for understanding the relationship between atmospheric circulation and sea-ice variations, and for predicting the Arctic sea ice changes.
Highlights
The traditional three-cell model was firstly proposed by Ferrel in 1860 (Persson, 2006) and has been widely accepted in the past century
Daily anomalies of atmospheric variables have been used in short, medium- and extended-range forecasts of many surface weather extremes in China, including heat waves (Ding and Qian, 2012), unusual typhoon tracks (Qian et al, 2014; Huang et al, 2015), summer cold spells in Northeast China (Qian and Jiang, 2014), as well as spring and autumn anomalous low temperature spells in southern China (Qian et al, 2015b)
Applying the decomposition approach on the above seven datasets, we examine the relation between Arctic sea ice minimum (SIM) events and atmospheric variable anomalies
Summary
The traditional three-cell model was firstly proposed by Ferrel in 1860 (Persson, 2006) and has been widely accepted in the past century. The meridional circulation variation is considered to play an important part in climate change, such as the intensity and coverage of the Hadley cell (Hu and Fu, 2007; Chen et al, 2014b) cannot directly explain the fast climate warming and interannual sea ice minimum (SIM) events in the Arctic (Kumar et al, 2010; Graversen et al, 2011; Devasthale et al, 2013; Dong et al, 2014). We explore the possible relationship between the Arctic sea ice change and meridional circulation in the NH high latitudes
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
