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Growing Land‐Sea Temperature Contrast and the Intensification of Arctic Cyclones
Author(s) -
Day Jonathan J.,
Hodges Kevin I.
Publication year - 2018
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 - 10.1029/2018gl077587
Subject(s) - arctic , climatology , cyclone (programming language) , environmental science , climate change , arctic sea ice decline , sea ice , arctic ice pack , extratropical cyclone , oceanography , geology , drift ice , field programmable gate array , computer science , computer hardware
Cyclones play an important role in the coupled dynamics of the Arctic climate system on a range of time scales. Modeling studies suggest that storminess will increase in Arctic summer due to enhanced land‐sea thermal contrast along the Arctic coastline, in a region known as the Arctic Frontal Zone (AFZ). However, the climate models used in these studies are poor at reproducing the present‐day Arctic summer cyclone climatology and so their projections of Arctic cyclones and related quantities, such as sea ice, may not be reliable. In this study we perform composite analysis of Arctic cyclone statistics using AFZ variability as an analog for climate change. High AFZ years are characterized both by increased cyclone frequency and dynamical intensity, compared to low years. Importantly, the size of the response in this analog suggests that General Circulation Models may underestimate the response of Arctic cyclones to climate change, given a similar change in baroclinicity.