The Arctic winter sea ice quadrupole revisited

Sally Close (1) , M.-N. Houssais (1) , C. Herbaut (1)

1 LOCEAN - Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques

The dominant mode of Arctic sea ice variability in winter is often maintained to be represented by a quadrupole structure, comprising poles of one sign in the Okhotsk, Greenland and Barents Seas, and opposing sign in the Labrador and Bering Seas, forced by the North Atlantic Oscillation. In this study, we revisit this large-scale winter mode of sea ice variability using microwave satellite and reanalysis data. We find that the quadrupole structure does not describe a significant covariance relationship amongst all four component poles. The first empirical orthogonal mode, explaining covariability in the sea ice of the Barents, Greenland and Okhotsk Seas, is linked to the Siberian High, whilst the North Atlantic Oscillation exhibits a significant relationship only with the Labrador Sea ice, which varies independently as the second mode. The principal components are characterised by a strong low-frequency signal; the satellite record still being short, statistical analyses should thus be applied cautiously.

Domains: Climatology

Sally Close, M.-N. Houssais, C. Herbaut. The Arctic winter sea ice quadrupole revisited. Journal of Climate, 2017, ⟨10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0506.1⟩. ⟨hal-01452684v1⟩