Link between the Barents Oscillation and Recent Boreal Winter Cooling over the Asian Midlatitudes
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Abstract
The link between boreal winter cooling over the midlatitudes of Asia and the Barents Oscillation (BO) since the late 1980s is discussed in this study, based on five datasets. Results indicate that there is a large-scale boreal winter cooling during 1990-2015 over the Asian midlatitudes, and that it is a part of the decadal oscillations of long-term surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies. The SAT anomalies over the Asian midlatitudes are significantly correlated with the BO in boreal winter. When the BO is in its positive phase, anomalously high sea level pressure over the Barents region, with a clockwise wind anomaly, causes cold air from the high latitudes to move over the midlatitudes of Asia, resulting in anomalous cold conditions in that region. Therefore, the recent increasing trend of the BO has contributed to recent winter cooling over the Asian midlatitudes.
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