Robustness of the Warm Arctic/Cold Eurasian Signature within a Large Ensemble Model Experiment

Abstract

We use two groups of 100-member ensemble AGCM experiment to investigate the robustness and probabilistic nature of the Warm Arctic/Cold Eurasian (WACE) pattern with or without strong warming SST trend and sea-ice reduction. Model ensembles successfully simulate a distribution of trend coefficients close to that of observation. Results show that the recent trend in WACE pattern is driven by the warming of the Arctic SST, but the pattern itself is not amplified between the warming and non-warming experiment and cannot explain the current cooling trend of the mid-latitudes. We argue that the difference in sea-ice condition regulates the more extreme cases of the pattern thereby contributing to the positive trend in WACE pattern similar to that of observation.