Type: Journal Article
Venue: Environmental Research Letters
Citation:
Judah L. Cohen, Jason C. Furtado, Mathew A. Barlow, Vladimir A. Alexeev and Jessica E. Cherry (2012) Arctic warming, increasing snow cover and widespread boreal winter cooling. Environmental Research Letters, 7, 014007.
Judah L Cohen et al., 2012 Environ. Res. Lett., 7, 014007. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/7/1/014007
Resource Link: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014007
Voted Best Article of 2012 by ERL Editorial Board
Abstract:
The most up to date consensus from global climate models predicts warming in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) high- to mid-latitudes during boreal winter. However, recent trends in observed NH winter surface temperatures diverge from these projections. For the last two decades, large-scale cooling trends exist instead across large stretches of eastern North America and northern Eurasia. We argue that this unforeseen trend is likely not due to internal variability alone. Instead, evidence suggests that summer and autumn warming trends are concurrent with increases in high-latitude moisture and an increase in Eurasian snow cover, which dynamically induces large-scale wintertime cooling. Understanding this counterintuitive response to radiative warming of the climate system has the potential to improve climate predictions at seasonal and longer timescales.
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