Fig. 3: Major pathways for sea ice to impact atmospheric circulation and weather/climate variability. | npj Climate and Atmospheric Science

Fig. 3: Major pathways for sea ice to impact atmospheric circulation and weather/climate variability.

From: Attributing climate and weather extremes to Northern Hemisphere sea ice and terrestrial snow: progress, challenges and ways forward

Fig. 3: Major pathways for sea ice to impact atmospheric circulation and weather/climate variability.

Sea ice loss induces warming to weaken the meridional temperature gradient (-∇T), often hypothesized to lead to a meandering jet stream, and also to weaken the potential vorticity (-∇PV) gradient, which is thought to favor atmospheric blocking. Warming induced by sea ice loss modulates vertically propagating Rossby waves to the stratosphere (upward wavy thick arrows), causing the stratospheric polar vortex, for example, to split. Directly excited Rossby wave trains by sea ice loss (curved arrows denoted by ‘H’ and ‘L’.) can propagate to lower latitudes and the Pacific Ocean. Enhanced evaporation from sea ice loss (red thin wavy arrows) is linked to extreme snowfall and extreme precipitation. Arctic warming and sea ice melt weaken the AMOC by increasing freshwater input to the North Atlantic (blue wavy arrows). A weakened/collapsed AMOC results in cooler winters in northern and western Europe. Arctic sea ice loss is also linked to variabiliyt of El Niño–Southern Oscillation.

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