A robust mode of climate variability in the Arctic: The Barents Oscillation
2013 (English)In: Geophysical Research Letters, ISSN 0094-8276, E-ISSN 1944-8007, Vol. 40, no 11, p. 2856-2861Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The Barents Oscillation (BO) is an anomalous wintertime atmospheric circulation pattern in the Northern Hemisphere that has been linked to the meridional flow over the Nordic Seas. There are speculations that the BO has important implications for the Arctic climate; however, it has also been suggested that the pattern is an artifact of Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis due to an eastward shift of the Arctic Oscillation/North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/NAO). In this study, EOF analyses are performed to show that a robust pattern resembling the BO can be found during different time periods, even when the AO/NAO is relatively stationary. This BO has a high and stable temporal correlation with the geostrophic zonal wind over the Barents Sea, while the contribution from the AO/NAO is small. The surface air temperature anomalies over the Barents Sea are closely associated with this mode of climate variability.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2013. Vol. 40, no 11, p. 2856-2861
Keywords [en]
Barents Oscillation, Arctic Oscillation, North Atlantic Oscillation, Arctic climate variability, Barents Sea, Empirical Orthogonal Function
National Category
Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences
Research subject
Meteorology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:smhi:diva-373DOI: 10.1002/grl.50551ISI: 000321261600069OAI: oai:DiVA.org:smhi-373DiVA, id: diva2:801754
2015-04-102015-03-312017-12-04Bibliographically approved