Divergent consensuses on Arctic amplification influence on midlatitude severe winter weather
Review article, 2020
The Arctic has warmed more than twice as fast as the global average since the late twentieth century, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification (AA). Recently, there have been considerable advances in understanding the physical contributions to AA, and progress has been made in understanding the mechanisms that link it to midlatitude weather variability. Observational studies overwhelmingly support that AA is contributing to winter continental cooling. Although some model experiments support the observational evidence, most modelling results show little connection between AA and severe midlatitude weather or suggest the export of excess heating from the Arctic to lower latitudes. Divergent conclusions between model and observational studies, and even intramodel studies, continue to obfuscate a clear understanding of how AA is influencing midlatitude weather.
Author
Judah Cohen
Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Xiangdong Zhang
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Jennifer Francis
Woods Hole Research Center
Thomas Jung
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
Universität Bremen
Ronald Kwok
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
James Overland
NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Thomas J. Ballinger
Texas State University
Uma S. Bhatt
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Hans Chen
Lund University
Pennsylvania State University
Dim Coumou
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Steven Feldstein
Pennsylvania State University
Hongping Gu
Utah State University
Dörthe Handorf
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
Gina Henderson
US Naval Academy
Monica Ionita
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
Marlene Kretschmer
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
F. Laliberte
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Sukyoung Lee
Pennsylvania State University
Hans Linderholm
University of Gothenburg
W. Maslowski
Naval Postgraduate School
Y. Peings
University of California at Irvine (UCI)
K. Pfeiffer
Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc.
I. Rigor
University of Washington
T. Semmler
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
J. Stroeve
University College London (UCL)
P. C. Taylor
NASA Langley Research Center
S. Vavrus
University of Wisconsin Madison
T. Vihma
Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI)
S. Wang
Utah State University
M. Wendisch
Leipzig University
Y. Wu
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
J. Yoon
Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
Nature Climate Change
1758-678X (ISSN) 1758-6798 (eISSN)
Vol. 10 1 20-29Subject Categories
Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences
Climate Research
Roots
Basic sciences
DOI
10.1038/s41558-019-0662-y