Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 26, 2025

Simulating Impacts of Ice Storms on Forest Ecosystems
Published on: June 30, 2020
Sea ice-air interactions amplify multidecadal variability in the North Atlantic and Arctic region
1Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME)/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Change (ILCEC)/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China. jcdeng@nuist.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Winter surface air temperature (Tas) over the Barents-Kara Seas (BKS) and other Arctic regions has experienced rapid warming since the late 1990s that has been linked to the concurring cooling over Eurasia, and these multidecadal trends are attributed partly to internal variability. However, how such variability is generated is unclear. Through analyses of observations and model simulations, we show that sea ice-air two-way interactions amplify multidecadal variability in sea-ice cover, sea surface temperatures (SST) and Tas from the North Atlantic to BKS, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) mainly through variations in surface fluxes. When sea ice is fixed in flux calculations, multidecadal variations are reduced substantially (by 20-50%) not only in Arctic Tas, but also in North Atlantic SST and AMOC. The results suggest that sea ice-air interactions are crucial for multidecadal climate variability in both the Arctic and North Atlantic, similar to air-sea interactions for tropical climate.
Related Concept Videos
Global Climate Change
What is Climate?
Isochoric and Isobaric Processes
Suppose 1000 g of water is heated from 40...
Phase Transitions: Melting and Freezing
Influence of Earth's Curvature and Atmospheric Refraction on Leveling
Variation of Atmospheric Pressure
Assuming the air temperature is constant at a given altitude and that the ideal gas law of thermodynamics describes the atmosphere to a good approximation, one can find the variation of atmospheric pressure with height.
Let p(y) be the atmospheric pressure at...

