Impact of declining Arctic sea ice on winter snowfall

Liu, Jiping; Curry, Judith A.; Wang, Huijun; Song, Mirong; Horton, Radley M.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1114910109

Cited by 764 publications

(656 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The increasing intensity of climate change from RCP2.6 to RCP8.5 translates into an increasingly steep relationship between solid precipitation change and latitude. This is very coherent with Räisänen (2008), who reported a snowfall increase for the CMIP3 climate projections in the high northern latitudes, and it is coherent with observations of snowfall increase in these areas linked to very recent sea ice cover reduction (Liu et al, 2012). Pattern scaling is equally obvious in the dependency of surface air temperature change as a function of latitude (Fig.…”

Section: Projected Changes As a Function Of Latitude And Emission Scesupporting

confidence: 76%

An analysis of present and future seasonal Northern Hemisphere land snow cover simulated by CMIP5 coupled climate models

2013

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Abstract. The 20th century seasonal Northern Hemisphere (NH) land snow cover as simulated by available CMIP5 model output is compared to observations. On average, the models reproduce the observed snow cover extent very well, but the significant trend towards a reduced spring snow cover extent over the 1979-2005 period is underestimated (observed: (−3.4 ± 1.1) % per decade; simulated: (−1.0 ± 0.3) % per decade). We show that this is linked to the simulated Northern Hemisphere extratropical spring land warming trend over the same period, which is also underestimated, although the models, on average, correctly capture the observed global warming trend. There is a good linear correlation between the extent of hemispheric seasonal spring snow cover and boreal large-scale spring surface air temperature in the models, supported by available observations. This relationship also persists in the future and is independent of the particular anthropogenic climate forcing scenario. Similarly, the simulated linear relationship between the hemispheric seasonal spring snow cover extent and global mean annual mean surface air temperature is stable in time. However, the slope of this relationship is underestimated at present (observed: (−11.8 ± 2.7) % • C −1 ; simulated: (−5.1 ± 3.0) % • C −1 ) because the trend towards lower snow cover extent is underestimated, while the recent global warming trend is correctly represented.

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Section: Projected Changes As a Function Of Latitude And Emission Scesupporting

confidence: 76%

An analysis of present and future seasonal Northern Hemisphere land snow cover simulated by CMIP5 coupled climate models

2013

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“…Some studies argued that the negative Arctic Oscillation (AO) resembling pattern in autumn can persist into winter (Francis et al 2009;Liu et al 2012;Li and Wang 2013b) whereas some other studies suggested that the autumn atmospheric response cannot persist into the mid-late winter (e.g., Blüthgen et al 2012;Screen et al 2013). Furthermore, Screen et al (2014) investigated the winter atmospheric response to the autumn Arctic sea-ice concentration (SIC) trend from 1979 to 2009 using two models and did not find the negative AO or NAO pattern.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The warmer ocean associated with the autumn sea-ice reduction can transfer more heat to the atmosphere (Blüthgen et al 2012), cause the low-troposphere warming (Kumar et al 2010;Blüthgen et al 2012;Screen et al 2014), moistening (Liu et al 2012;Screen et al 2013) and the changes in sea level pressure (SLP) over the Arctic (Screen et al 2014). The neutral or negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) pattern can appear simultaneously in response to the summer-autumn sea-ice reduction (Francis et al 2009;Screen et al 2013;Walsh 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, it has been proposed that the Eurasia cold winter (Honda et al 2009), spring cooling over East Asia (Li and Wang 2013a), precipitation (Li and Wang 2013b) and intense snowfall over the North America, Europe and East Asia in recent winters (Liu et al 2012;Na et al 2012) can be attributed to the reduced autumn Arctic SIC, either by the intensified and more persistent winter Siberian High or the increased winter blockings (Wu et al 2011;Liu et al 2012;Zhang et al 2012). But the causality of the autumn Arctic SIC reduction and the winter weather events has not been proven and clearly explained yet.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Atmospheric response to the autumn sea-ice free Arctic and its detectability

et al. 2015

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“…Thus the EAWM is mainly regulated by the ENSO cycle and the Arctic Oscillation in the interannual variability. Recently, Liu et al [14] indicated that the Arctic sea ice content has substantial impact on the EAWM, winter temperature and snowstorm activity.…”

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confidence: 99%

Weakening relationship between East Asian winter monsoon and ENSO after mid-1970s

2012

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The East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) is characterized by the frequent cold surges and associated closely with the Siberia High, East Asian Trough, and high-level westerly jet stream. The ENSO cycle can modulate the EAWM since it has co-variability with the sea surface temperature over the Indo-Western-Pacific which can tune the land-sea thermal contrast for the EAWM. This paper, by analyzing the EAWM, ENSO, and associated atmosphere-ocean variability, documents the weakening of the EAWM-ENSO relationship after the 1970s. The significant out-of-phase inter-relationship is found to be diminished after the 1970s. Further study in this work suggests that the weakened co-variability of the tropical Indo-Western-Pacific climate associated with ENSO after the 1970s is partly responsible for the weakened inter-relationship. Meanwhile, the reduced EAWM interannual variability and northward retreat of the EAWM-associated climate variability are favorable to the weakened ENSO-EAWM connection. East Asian winter monsoon, ENSO, interdecadal variability, interannual variability Citation:Wang H J, He S P. Weakening relationship between East Asian winter monsoon and ENSO after mid-1970s.

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Impact of declining Arctic sea ice on winter snowfall

Cited by 764 publications

References 31 publications

An analysis of present and future seasonal Northern Hemisphere land snow cover simulated by CMIP5 coupled climate models

An analysis of present and future seasonal Northern Hemisphere land snow cover simulated by CMIP5 coupled climate models

Atmospheric response to the autumn sea-ice free Arctic and its detectability

Weakening relationship between East Asian winter monsoon and ENSO after mid-1970s

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