Abstract
In contrast to global warming trends, much of Eurasia experienced a winter cooling trend over 1990–2014. Some studies have proposed a causal link between this regional cooling, particularly strong over Siberia, to coincident reductions in Arctic sea-ice extent. However, free-running historical climate models overwhelmingly simulate a forced Eurasian warming signal, leading other studies to suggest that internal variability explains the observed cooling. Here, we use retrospective seasonal climate predictions to highlight a robust dynamical link between Siberian cooling and upstream north-east Atlantic atmospheric circulation changes. Examining the interannual predictability of these circulation patterns, we find spuriously weak but skilful model signals. When these weak dynamical signals are corrected, stronger low-frequency variability in downstream Siberian temperature also emerges, with half of the observed 1990–2014 cooling simulated. Our results suggest that Eurasian decadal climate variability is at least partly driven by a predictable atmospheric circulation response to slowly evolving boundary conditions.
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Data availability
ERA5 reanalysis data was downloaded from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) at Climate Data Store (CDS; https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/). The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) data is archived and accessible through the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF). The initialised hindcasts of the Met Office DePreSys3 system are available from the author upon request.
Code availability
Computer code used to produce the figures is available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by BEIS and Defra. It was also funded by the Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP) China project under the International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF). LW acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation of China (42261144687).
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N.J.D. led the analysis. N.J.D., C.L., and D.M.S. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. C.L. and Z.L. obtained and analysed the CMIP6 model data. C.L., S.C.H., L.H., Z.L., A.A.S., R.T., L.W., and T.W. contributed to the editing and writing of the manuscript.
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Dunstone, N.J., Li, C., Smith, D.M. et al. Predictable atmospheric circulation driver of Eurasian winter temperatures. npj Clim Atmos Sci (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01297-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-025-01297-1
