Antarctic Peninsula warm winters influenced by Tasman Sea temperatures.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33686073.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-21773-5 and PMC identifier 7940433.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The Antarctic Peninsula of West Antarctica was one of the most rapidly warming regions on the Earth during the second half of the 20th century. Changes in the atmospheric circulation associated with remote tropical climate variabilities have been considered as leading drivers of the change in surface conditions in the region. However, the impacts of climate variabilities over the mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere on this Antarctic warming have yet to be quantified. Here, through observation analysis and model experiments, we reveal that increases in winter sea surface temperature (SST) in the Tasman Sea modify Southern Ocean storm tracks. This, in turn, induces warming over the Antarctic Peninsula via planetary waves triggered in the Tasman Sea. We show that atmospheric response to SST warming over the Tasman Sea, even in the absence of anomalous tropical SST forcing, deepens the Amundsen Sea Low, leading to warm advection over the Antarctic Peninsula.