ClimaTea Journal Club

Date: 

Tuesday, November 5, 2019, 3:00pm

Location: 

HUCE Seminar Room MCZ 429

Speaker: Graduate student Kara Hartig

Kara will lead a discussion on the paper titled "The Role of Moist Intrusions in Winter Arctic Warming and Sea Ice Decline” by Woods and Caballero 2016. (Paper attached)

Abstract:

This paper examines the trajectories followed by intense intrusions of moist air into the Arctic polar region during autumn and winter and their impact on local temperature and sea ice concentration. It is found that the vertical structure of the warming associated with moist intrusions is bottom amplified, corresponding to a transition of local conditions from a ‘‘cold clear’’ state with a strong inversion to a ‘‘warm opaque’’ state with a weaker inversion. In the marginal sea ice zone of the Barents Sea, the passage of an intrusion also causes a retreat of the ice margin, which persists for many days after the intrusion has passed. The authors find that there is a positive trend in the number of intrusion events crossing 708N during December and January that can explain roughly 45% of the surface air temperature and 30% of the sea ice concentration trends observed in the Barents Sea during the past two decades.