Extreme cyclone events in the Arctic: Wintertime variability and trends

Rinke, Annette; Maturilli, Marion; Graham, Robert M.; Matthes, Heidrun; Handorf, Dörthe; Cohen, Lior; Hudson, Stephen R.; Moore, John C.

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa7def

Cited by 157 publications

(172 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…The observed intense storms are related to midwinter warming events (temperature increase of over 20 K in less than 24 h) and are a normal part of the Arctic climate, but they are becoming more frequent and lasting longer than they did three decades ago (Graham et al, ; Rinke et al, ). Storm events are associated with transitions from the radiatively clear (i.e., cold, strongly stable stratified) to the opaquely cloudy (i.e., warmer) state (Graham et al, ; Stramler et al, ).…”

Section: Overview Of Conditions During Experiments and Main Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmosphere‐Ice‐Ocean‐Ecosystem Processes in a Thinner Arctic Sea Ice Regime: The Norwegian Young Sea ICE (N‐ICE2015) Expedition

et al. 2018

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Arctic sea ice has been in rapid decline the last decade and the Norwegian young sea ICE (N‐ICE2015) expedition sought to investigate key processes in a thin Arctic sea ice regime, with emphasis on atmosphere‐snow‐ice‐ocean dynamics and sea ice associated ecosystem. The main findings from a half‐year long campaign are collected into this special section spanning the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, and Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences and provide a basis for a better understanding of processes in a thin sea ice regime in the high Arctic. All data from the campaign are made freely available to the research community.

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Section: Overview Of Conditions During Experiments and Main Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmosphere‐Ice‐Ocean‐Ecosystem Processes in a Thinner Arctic Sea Ice Regime: The Norwegian Young Sea ICE (N‐ICE2015) Expedition

et al. 2018

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“…A major Arctic warming event occurred from late December 2015 to late winter 2016. Northward advection of temperature and moisture, which increases of downward long wave radiation, delayed sea ice freeze-up along the trajectory, thus providing a positive feedback by Arctic process that helped to maintain the record high temperature events (Binder et al, 2017;Cullather et al, 2016;Hanna et al, 2016;Rinke et al, 2017). This event caught the public's attention with reports of temperatures warming to near the freezing point at the North Pole.…”

Section: Recent Warm Weather Linkagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resolving Future Arctic/Midlatitude Weather Connections

Wang

2018

Earth's Future

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Given ongoing large changes in the Arctic, high-latitude forcing is a new potential driver for sub-seasonal weather impacts at midlatitudes in coming decades. Such linkage research, however, is controversial. Some metrics find supporting evidence and others report no robust correlations. Model studies reach different conclusions. Case studies from particular historical months suggest potential connections. We propose that a difficulty in resolving the science is due to the inherent complexity and intermittent character of atmospheric dynamics, which serves as a variable causal bridge between changes in the Arctic and midlatitude weather. Linkages may be more favorable in one atmospheric jet stream pattern than another. Linkages are a two-step process: thermodynamic forcing, i.e. warm Arctic temperatures and loss of sea ice, is generally favorable in the last decade, but internal atmospheric dynamics, i.e. the jet stream location and strength, must also allow for a connection. Thus, in the last decade only a few possible linkage events are noted into and out of the Arctic; for examples

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“…Bintanja and Selten (), Park et al () Woods and Caballero (), Graham et al (), and Rinke et al () suggest that there is strong evidence of a change of the Arctic climate regime, especially for the Atlantic sector toward a higher storm frequency and more precipitation events. An increase in frequency and duration of winter warming events in the North Pole region, from the Atlantic sector is shown by Graham et al ().…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thin Sea Ice, Thick Snow, and Widespread Negative Freeboard Observed During N‐ICE2015 North of Svalbard

et al. 2018

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In recent years, sea‐ice conditions in the Arctic Ocean changed substantially toward a younger and thinner sea‐ice cover. To capture the scope of these changes and identify the differences between individual regions, in situ observations from expeditions are a valuable data source. We present a continuous time series of in situ measurements from the N‐ICE2015 expedition from January to June 2015 in the Arctic Basin north of Svalbard, comprising snow buoy and ice mass balance buoy data and local and regional data gained from electromagnetic induction (EM) surveys and snow probe measurements from four distinct drifts. The observed mean snow depth of 0.53 m for April to early June is 73% above the average value of 0.30 m from historical and recent observations in this region, covering the years 1955–2017. The modal total ice and snow thicknesses, of 1.6 and 1.7 m measured with ground‐based EM and airborne EM measurements in April, May, and June 2015, respectively, lie below the values ranging from 1.8 to 2.7 m, reported in historical observations from the same region and time of year. The thick snow cover slows thermodynamic growth of the underlying sea ice. In combination with a thin sea‐ice cover this leads to an imbalance between snow and ice thickness, which causes widespread negative freeboard with subsequent flooding and a potential for snow‐ice formation. With certainty, 29% of randomly located drill holes on level ice had negative freeboard.

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Extreme cyclone events in the Arctic: Wintertime variability and trends

Abstract: Typically 20-40 extreme cyclone events (sometimes called 'weather bombs') occur in the Arctic North Atlantic per winter season, with an increasing trend of 6 events/decade over

Cited by 157 publications

References 64 publications

Atmosphere‐Ice‐Ocean‐Ecosystem Processes in a Thinner Arctic Sea Ice Regime: The Norwegian Young Sea ICE (N‐ICE2015) Expedition

Atmosphere‐Ice‐Ocean‐Ecosystem Processes in a Thinner Arctic Sea Ice Regime: The Norwegian Young Sea ICE (N‐ICE2015) Expedition

Resolving Future Arctic/Midlatitude Weather Connections

Thin Sea Ice, Thick Snow, and Widespread Negative Freeboard Observed During N‐ICE2015 North of Svalbard

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