Analysis on Winter Atmospheric Variability Related to Arctic Warming

Abstract

The "Barents Oscillation (BO)", first designated by Paul Skeie (2000), is an anom- alous recurring atmospheric circulation pattern of high relevance for the climate of the Nordic Seas and Siberia, which is defined as the second Emperical Orthogonal Function (EOF) of monthly winter sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies, where the leading EOF is the Arctic Oscil- lation (AO). BO, however, did not attracted much interest. In recent two decades, variability of BO tends to increase. In this study, we analyzed the spatio-temporal structures of Atmospheric internal modes such as Arctic Oscillation (AO) and Barents Oscillation (BO) and examined how these are related with Arctic warming in recent decade. We identified various aspects of BO, not dealt in Skeie (2000), such as upper-level circulation and surface characteristics for extended period including recent decade and examined link with other surface variables such as sea-ice and sea surface temperature. From the results, it was shown that the BO showed more regionally confined spatial pattern compared to AO and has intensified during recent decade. The regional dipolelar structure centered at Barents sea and Siberia was revealed in both sea-level pressure and 500 hPa geopotential height. Also, BO showed a stronger link (cor- relation) with sea-ice and sea surface temperature especially over Barents-Kara seas suggest- ing it is playing an important role for recent Arctic amplification. BO also showed high correlation with Ural Blocking Index (UBI), which measures seasonal activity of Ural block- ing. Since Ural blocking is known as a major component of Eurasian winter monsoon and can be linked to extreme weathers, we suggest deeper understanding of BO can provide a missing link between recent Arctic amplification and increase in extreme weathers in midlatitude in recent decades.