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

Baek-Min Kim, Seok-Woo Son, Seung-Ki Min, Jee-Hoon Jeong, Seong-Joong Kim (), Xiangdong Zhang, Taehyoun Shim and Jin-Ho Yoon
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Baek-Min Kim: Korea Polar Research Institute
Seok-Woo Son: School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University
Seung-Ki Min: School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology
Jee-Hoon Jeong: Chonnam National University
Seong-Joong Kim: Korea Polar Research Institute
Xiangdong Zhang: University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Taehyoun Shim: Chonnam National University
Jin-Ho Yoon: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Successive cold winters of severely low temperatures in recent years have had critical social and economic impacts on the mid-latitude continents in the Northern Hemisphere. Although these cold winters are thought to be partly driven by dramatic losses of Arctic sea-ice, the mechanism that links sea-ice loss to cold winters remains a subject of debate. Here, by conducting observational analyses and model experiments, 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.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5646

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