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Influence of the western North Atlantic and the Barents Sea on European winter climate
Author(s) -
Gerber Franziska,
Sedláček Jan,
Knutti Reto
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2013gl058778
Subject(s) - climatology , environmental science , sea surface temperature , arctic sea ice decline , sea ice , oceanography , arctic ice pack , arctic , the arctic , climate change , geology , antarctic sea ice
Despite global warming, Europe experienced several unusually cold winters in recent years. Reduced sea ice concentration in the Arctic and increased sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Atlantic are independently hypothesized as possible triggers for such cold winters. We investigate the individual and combined influence of Barents Sea and Atlantic sea ice and SST conditions on European winter temperatures. In our simulations cold extremes become more frequent, but the imposed sea ice and/or SST anomalies only weakly affect European winter mean temperatures. We argue that a forced cooling of European mean temperatures would have to include additional mechanisms, but the variability of European winter temperatures is large, and cold winters could just be the result of internal variability.