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. 2012 Mar 13;109(11):4074-9.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1114910109. Epub 2012 Feb 27.

Impact of declining Arctic sea ice on winter snowfall

Jiping Liu  1 , Judith A Curry, Huijun Wang, Mirong Song, Radley M Horton
Affiliations

Impact of declining Arctic sea ice on winter snowfall

Jiping Liu et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Erratum in

  • Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Apr 24;109(17):6781-3

Abstract

While the Arctic region has been warming strongly in recent decades, anomalously large snowfall in recent winters has affected large parts of North America, Europe, and east Asia. Here we demonstrate that the decrease in autumn Arctic sea ice area is linked to changes in the winter Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation that have some resemblance to the negative phase of the winter Arctic oscillation. However, the atmospheric circulation change linked to the reduction of sea ice shows much broader meridional meanders in midlatitudes and clearly different interannual variability than the classical Arctic oscillation. This circulation change results in more frequent episodes of blocking patterns that lead to increased cold surges over large parts of northern continents. Moreover, the increase in atmospheric water vapor content in the Arctic region during late autumn and winter driven locally by the reduction of sea ice provides enhanced moisture sources, supporting increased heavy snowfall in Europe during early winter and the northeastern and midwestern United States during winter. We conclude that the recent decline of Arctic sea ice has played a critical role in recent cold and snowy winters.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
(A) Time series of actual and detrended autumn Arctic sea ice area anomaly (× 106 km2) and winter AO index and (B) linear regression of winter snow cover anomalies (%) on the detrended autumn Arctic sea ice area anomaly (regions within contours denote the regression above 95% confidence level).
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Linear regression of winter sea level pressure (hPa, Upper) and surface air temperature (°C, Lower) on (A and C) the detrended autumn Arctic sea ice area anomaly (regions within contours denote the regression above 95% confidence level) and (B and D) AO index.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
(A) Ratio (%) between linear regression of incidence of winter blockings on the detrended autumn Arctic sea ice area anomaly and winter blocking climatology during 1979–2010. B is similar to A except for winter cold events, and linear regression of specific humidity (integrated from surface to 700 hPa, kg/kg) in (C) November-December (late autumn to early winter) and (D) December-January (winter) on the detrended autumn Arctic sea ice area anomaly (regions within contours denote the regression above 95% confidence level).
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Prescribed sea ice loss (%) in (A) autumn and (B) winter applied to the perturbed experiment and differences in (C) sea level pressure (hPa) and (D) surface air temperature (°C) in winter and specific humidity (integrated from surface to 700 hPa, kg/kg) in (E) November-December (late autumn to early winter) and (F) December-January (winter) between the perturbed and control experiments (regions within contours denote the model responses that are above 95% confidence level).
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