Abstract
This study investigates the dominant characteristics of winter Arctic tropospheric thickness (1000–200 hPa), the variations of winter atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere, and the related winter North Pacific storm track (NPST) variabilities during 1979–2018 under the combined effects of the La Niña events with different periods of Arctic tropospheric thermal conditions. Results show that the leading mode (42.7%) exhibits prominent warm anomalies centered on Greenland and Baffin Bay. The winter Arctic tropospheric thickness experienced a phase shift from a cold period of the Arctic tropospheric temperature in 1979–1999 to the warm period after 2000. During the La Niña events with Arctic tropospheric warm anomalies, a wave train is shown in the mid-high latitudes with alternative anticyclonic, cyclonic, and anticyclonic anomalies over the Ural Mountains, Lake Baikal, and North Pacific, respectively. This atmospheric circulation pattern not only intensifies the linkage between the Arctic and mid-low latitudes but also induces the winter NPST shifting poleward. The possible physical mechanism is attributed to the large-scale circulation change and the local baroclinic energy conversion (BCEC). The enhanced anticyclonic anomaly in the North Pacific alters the climatological mean flow, further influencing the local BCEC through the interaction between the mean flow and eddies. The significantly robust BCEC over the North Pacific possibly induces the poleward shift of winter NPST during the La Niña events under the warm period.
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Data availability
The NCEP-NCAR reanalysis data are available from the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html. The monthly SST data in this paper is the ERSSTv5 dataset, which is also freely obtained at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v5.html.
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Funding
We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and helpful suggestions. The authors thank the NCEP–NCAR, the NOAA/Physical Sciences Laboratory, and the NOAA/Climate Prediction Center for providing atmospheric reanalysis data, sea surface temperature data, and the seasonal Oceanic Niño Index. This research is supported by the National Key Basic Research Project of China (Grant 2019YFA0607002), the Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation (Grant 41790472), the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 41730959), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 41905058), and the Program of CAMS (Grant 2015CB453202).
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Zhang, X., Wu, B. & Ding, S. Combined effects of La Niña events and Arctic tropospheric warming on the winter North Pacific storm track. Clim Dyn 60, 1351–1368 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06389-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06389-9