Arctic Oscillation impact on thermal regime in the Eastern part of the Baltic region

Abstract

The paper presents statistical estimations of Arctic Oscillation (AO) impact on air temperature regime in the eastern part of the Baltic region. The region is characterized by high inter-annual and inter-seasonal variability. It is important to note that in the region of global warming extremely low winter temperatures can be observed on the European territory of Russia. AO is one of the large-scale global patterns of atmospheric circulation closely associated with weather variability in northern Europe. AО anomalies occur in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) and only then are transferred to tropospheric lower layers. The anomalies can persist over a long period of time (up to two months); so they can serve as precursors in long-range weather forecasts. In turn, changes in stratospheric polar vortex and sudden stratospheric warmings can be related to geomagnetic activity. Perhaps geomagnetic activity influences the meridional temperature gradient and then changes the structure of the stratospheric zonal wind. These changes have an effect on the tropospheric circulation. The stratosphere–troposphere coupling takes place during winter months. Therefore, the paper deals with extremely cold winter anomalies in the eastern part of the Baltic Sea region. At the same time, we examine atmospheric circulation peculiarities associated with AO phase change. We analyze data for 1951–2014.

Keywords

• Arctic Oscillation
• polar vortex
• extremely cold months
• Eastern Europe
• atmospheric circulation types