Communicating Arctic-midlatitude weather and ecosystem connections: direct observations and sources of intermittency

Overland, James E; Kim, Baek-Min; Tachibana, Yoshihiro

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac25bc

i

Communicating Arctic-midlatitude weather and ecosystem connections: direct observations and sources of intermittency

2021
By Overland, James E ; Kim, Baek-Min ; Tachibana, Yoshihiro

Details

Journal Title:

Environmental Research Letters
Personal Author:

Overland, James E ; Kim, Baek-Min ; Tachibana, Yoshihiro
NOAA Program & Office:

PMEL (Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory) ; OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
Description:

There is controversy over the extent that Arctic change can influence midlatitude extreme weather and vis-versa. Part of the uncertainty is due to the intermittency of the connection through the jet stream and polar vortex that leads to different emphases when communicating research. Although statistical studies and model results often show weak or non-existent connections, we can provide two observational examples. Three interactive physical processes are involved through atmospheric dynamics: (a) internal atmospheric jet stream/polar vortex processes that add to the persistence of a wavy jet stream; (b) warm and humid air transport into an existing longwave atmospheric pattern; and (c) local thermodynamic surface forcing, often associated with loss of sea ice. All three atmospheric processes were active in two recent studies: winter 2016 in the Barents Sea and winter 2018 in the Bering/Chukchi Sea. Both impacted sea ice loss and the entire marine ecosystem food chain, and resulted in downstream cold air transport into midlatitudes. Societal anticipation is necessary to respond to a repeat of such events. Both the North American and eastern Asia examples show a causal connection from atmospheric and ocean physics through ecosystem disruption to human impacts. Thus global warming influences can be more than a local heating response, but follow a chain of events involving disruption of the jet stream.
Keywords:

General Environmental Science Public Health, Environmental And Occupational Health Renewable Energy, Sustainability And The Environment Public Health, Environmental And Occupational Health Renewable Energy, Sustainability And The Environment Public Health, Environmental And Occupational Health Renewable Energy, Sustainability And The Environment
Source:

Environmental Research Letters, 16(10), 105006
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac25bc
ISSN:

1748-9326
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

IOP Publishing
Document Type:

Journal Article
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY
Compliance:

Library
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha-512:84ab3baae662704eae8422c138fb74f94a8d0d255766e14a2b8aaea31615292b83c36b3999e27ef4fd5ab89c2bd2d9de89d494eb3227d5445fe397605b5cc326
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/64049/noaa_64049_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 3.97 MB ]

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