Weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex by Arctic sea-ice loss

Baek-Min Kim, KOPRI Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon, South Korea, Seok Woo Son, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of (South), Seung-Ki Min, POSTECH, Pohang, Korea, Republic of (South), Jee Hoon Jeong, Chonnam National University, Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Gwangju, South Korea, Seong-Joong Kim, KOPRI Korea Polar Research Institute, Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Incheon, South Korea, Xiangdong Zhang, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, United States, Taehyoun Shim, Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon, Korea, Republic of (South) and Jin-Ho Yoon, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, United States
Abstract:
Successive cold winters in recent years have had critical social and economic impacts on the mid-latitude continents in the Northern Hemisphere. In this study, we show how Arctic sea-ice loss and cold winters in extra-polar regions are dynamically connected through the polar stratosphere. We find that decreased sea-ice cover during early winter months (November– December), especially over the Barents–Kara seas, enhances the upward propagation of planetary-scale waves with wavenumbers of 1 and 2, subsequently weakening the stratospheric polar vortex in mid-winter (January–February). The weakened polar vortex preferentially induces a negative phase of Arctic Oscillation at the surface, resulting in low temperatures in mid-latitudes.
Back to: Extratropical and High-Latitude Storms, Teleconnections, and the Changing Polar Climate II