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The great Arctic cyclone of August 2012
Author(s) -
Simmonds Ian,
Rudeva Irina
Publication year - 2012
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 - 10.1029/2012gl054259
Subject(s) - arctic , climatology , storm , cyclone (programming language) , polar vortex , arctic dipole anomaly , arctic sea ice decline , arctic geoengineering , extratropical cyclone , siberian high , arctic ice pack , environmental science , storm surge , oceanography , geology , geography , stratosphere , east asia , china , antarctic sea ice , field programmable gate array , archaeology , computer science , computer hardware
On 2 August 2012 a dramatic storm formed over Siberia, moved into the Arctic, and died in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on 14 August. During its lifetime its central pressure dropped to 966 hPa, leading it to be dubbed ‘The Great Arctic Cyclone of August 2012’. This cyclone occurred during a period when the sea ice extent was on the way to reaching a new satellite‐era low, and its intense behavior was related to baroclinicity and a tropopause polar vortex. The pressure of the storm was the lowest of all Arctic August storms over our record starting in 1979, and the system was also the most extreme when a combination of key cyclone properties was considered. Even though, climatologically, summer is a ‘quiet’ time in the Arctic, when compared with all Arctic storms across the period it came in as the 13th most extreme storm, warranting the attribution of ‘Great’.