Wintertime Arctic sea ice extent has been declining since the late twentieth century, particularly over the Atlantic sector that encompasses the Barents-Kara Seas and Baffin Bay. This sea ice decline is attributable to various Arctic environmental changes, such as enhanced downward infrared (IR) radiation, preseason sea ice reduction, enhanced inflow of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean, and sea ice export. However, their relative contributions are uncertain. Utilizing ERA-Interim and satellite-based data, it is shown here that a positive trend of downward IR radiation accounts for nearly half of the sea ice concentration (SIC) decline during the 1979-2011 winter over the Atlantic sector. Furthermore, the study shows that the Arctic downward IR radiation increase is driven by horizontal atmospheric water flux and warm air advection into the Arctic, not by evaporation from the Arctic Ocean. These findings suggest that most of the winter SIC trends can be attributed to changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulations.

The threat of intense tropical cyclones (TCs) to East Asia has increased in recent decades. Integrated analyses of five available TC data sets for the period 1977-2010 revealed that the growing threat of TCs primarily results from the significant shift that the spatial positions of the maximum intensity of TCs moved closer to East Asian coastlines from Vietnam to Japan. This shift incurs a robust increase in landfall intensity over east China, Korea and Japan. In contrast, an increase of TC genesis frequency over the northern part of the South China Sea leads to a reduction in the maximum TC intensity before landfall, because of their short lifetime; thus, there are no clear tendencies in the landfall intensity across Vietnam, south China and Taiwan. All changes are related to the strengthening of the Pacific Walker circulation, closely linked with the recent manifestation that the warming trend of sea surface temperature in the tropical western Pacific is much higher than that in the central to eastern Pacific.

[1] Long-term changes in tropical cyclones (TCs) that made landfall in Korea and Japan during the TC seasons (June-October) are examined for the period 1977-2008. The TC activity is characterized by four parameters: power dissipation index (PDI), TC-induced rainfall, number of landfall TCs, and TC duration. The analysis period is divided into 2 decades (1977-1988 and 1997-2008). The PDI and TC-induced rainfall increase significantly in the later decade. This enhancement in the TC activity is because of the increase in the number of landfall TCs and the longer duration of the TCs over the two countries. The increase in the number of landfall TCs is associated with the enhanced northward steering flows over the East China Sea. The longer TC duration is mainly due to the high intensity of the approaching TCs prior to landfall. The other factors (i.e., tracks, translational speeds, mean drift lengths, and weakening rates of TCs) could also affect the TC duration, but they are found to be not significant. The results of our study reveal that the recent intensification of TCs is attributable to the changes observed in the later decade in the large-scale environments in the vicinity of the two countries. These changes include warmer sea surface temperature, highly humid midtroposphere, and weaker vertical wind shear over the region. In addition, another responsible factor is the anomalous upward motion driven by the relocation of secondary circulation near the jet entrance, which is highly related with weaker upper tropospheric jet stream in the recent decade.

Abstract. Together with emissions of air pollutants and precursors, meteorological conditions play important roles in local air quality through accumulation or ventilation, regional transport, and atmospheric chemistry. In this study, we extensively investigated multi-timescale meteorological effects on the urban air pollution using the long-term measurements data of PM10, SO2, NO2, CO, and O3 and meteorological variables over the period of 1999–2016 in Seoul, South Korea. The long-term air quality data were decomposed into trend-free short-term components and long-term trends by the Kolmogorov–Zurbenko filter, and the effects of meteorology and emissions were quantitatively isolated using a multiple linear regression with meteorological variables. In terms of short-term variability, intercorrelations among the pollutants and meteorological variables and composite analysis of synoptic meteorological fields exhibited that the warm and stagnant conditions in the migratory high-pressure system are related to the high PM10 and primary pollutant, while the strong irradiance and low NO2 by high winds at the rear of a cyclone are related to the high O3. In terms of long-term trends, decrease in PM10 (−1.75 µg m−3 yr−1) and increase in O3 (+0.88 ppb yr−1) in Seoul were largely contributed by the meteorology-related trends (−0.94 µg m−3 yr−1 for PM10 and +0.47 ppb yr−1 for O3), which were attributable to the subregional-scale wind speed increase. Comparisons with estimated local emissions and socioeconomic indices like gross domestic product (GDP) growth and fuel consumptions indicate probable influences of the 2008 global economic recession as well as the enforced regulations from the mid-2000s on the emission-related trends of PM10 and other primary pollutants. Change rates of local emissions and the transport term of long-term components calculated by the tracer continuity equation revealed a decrease in contributions of local emissions to the primary pollutants including PM10 and an increase in contributions of local secondary productions to O3. The present results not only reveal an important role of synoptic meteorological conditions on the episodic air pollution events but also give insights into the practical effects of environmental policies and regulations on the long-term air pollution trends. As a complementary approach to the chemical transport modeling, this study will provide a scientific background for developing and improving effective air quality management strategy in Seoul and its metropolitan area.