Search

Space observations (1979–2020) have shown that, over the past 40 years, years with a decrease in the area of summer ice and their thickness prevailed. Over 10 years, negative trends of anomalies in the area and thickness of the ice are –13 and –15%, respectively. A rapid reduction in the area of old ice (>4-year-old) is also noted, because in 1985 it was estimated at 2.7 million km2, while in March 2010 it was 0.34 million km2. The paper analyses paleo sea ice extent during the Holocene (the last 12 000 years) based on empirical IP25 biomarkers (a sea ice proxy with 25 carbon atoms synthesized by the specific Arctic sea ice diatoms Hasleaspp, which have been proven to be a suitable proxy for paleo-sea ice reconstructions) obtained from deep-sea cores from the North Atlantic. The data showed that, during the warm periods of the Early and Middle Holocene, the area of summer sea ice was reduced to a minimum. This confirms the conclusion made earlier in (Kinnard et al., 2011) that the current trend of reducing the area and thickness of ice is unprecedented over the past 1500 years. There is no complete analogue of the climate in the past corresponding to the current level of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. The period with CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere similar to the current level was the warm part of the Middle Pliocene between 3 and 4 million years ago with level of the CO2 concentration 450–500 ppm against approximately 420 ppm at present. Paleo-climate reconstructions for this period estimate the global temperature to be 3.0–3.5 ± 0.5°C higher than at the end of the 19th century. Summer air temperatures in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere exceeded the current ones by 8–10°C, and the sea ice in the Arctic shelf seas was completely absent in the summer. Empirical data and model simulations have shown that presently the main driver of the reduction of the Arctic sea ice area is the increase in concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. At the present time, old sea ice tends to be replaced by seasonal ice, demonstrating a natural shift from the predominance of permanent ice to an ice-free Arctic. In the case of a continuous increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere despite emission control measures, one of the scenarios that happened in the past may occur again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A stochastic weather generator is proposed in the paper. The model is designed for the numerical simulation of joint time series of surface air temperature, wind speed, and relative air humidity with a three-hour resolution at weather stations located in the Russian Arctic. The proposed weather generator allows taking into account the non-Gaussian form of one-dimensional distributions of meteorological parameters and the diurnal variations inherent to real series. The results of verifying the proposed model are presented, and the prospects of its further application are briefly described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A global problem facing humanity today is the changing planetary climate. The Earth's northern regions play an important role in processes that affect the environment on a global scale and serve as indicators of global natural changes, especially climate change. The currently observed climate changes in the Arctic, such as rising air temperature, shrinking ice cover, increased river runoff, and permafrost degradation, have already shown that the Arctic is experiencing the greatest changes in comparison with other regions of the Earth. The response of the Arctic to all climatic change occurring on the planet is the strongest. The strong and rapid changes in the Arctic climate in recent years require comprehensive studies of their causes with assessment of the role of natural and anthropogenic factors. This paper analyzes the temporal changes in a number of Arctic climate indicators based on its main components (air temperature and oscillations in the atmospheric circulation, ocean waters, and ice cover extent) at time intervals of the 20th century, the period of anthropogenic impact on the climate, the last 2000 years, and the Holocene period, as well as the role of solar activity (cyclical changes and insolation) in climate change on the Earth. Trends in the variation in natural climate indicators are traced. Problems of prime importance for an understanding of the nature of current climate change and the main physical processes responsible for these changes are discussed. The goal of the study is to summarize the current understanding of Arctic climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper, we present the results of an analysis of ceilometer measurements at North Pole (NP) drifting station 37, 39, and 40. The frequencies of the total cloud amount (in tenth) = TCA and the cloud base heights (CBHs) are calculated for the period of the polar night. A comparison of the cloud-cover score according to the ceilometer data with the visual observation data showed good agreement. However, the value of the correlation coefficient depends on the interpretation of the ceilometer data. In general, a bimodal distribution of the cloud-cover score with the highest frequency of clear sky and overcast clouds are characteristic for indicated stations. The analysis of the frequency of the CBH showed that the most characteristic CBHs are below 600 m. In November, cloud heights in the range of 1000–2000 m are also observed, while their frequency decreases during the winter. Cloudiness during the polar night is characterized by a strong positive radiative forcing, which has a warming effect on the surface temperature of ice and air. However, cloud radiative forcing, as well as the cloudiness frequency and its effect on the temperature regime, varies significantly from station to station. These differences may become the subject of further research on the interrelation of cloud characteristics with other processes in the Arctic climate system. These statistical estimates significantly supplement the available data on the cloud cover of the Central Arctic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of the verification of ERA-Interim and ERA5 reanalyses data on surface air temperature obtained from drifting buoys, ground-based weather stations, and, for the first time, from measurements at the North Pole drifting stations. The North Pole station data were not assimilated in the reanalyses, which provides a rare opportunity for independent validation. The comparison with data of the North Pole drifting stations revealed that bias for the cold season in the Arctic basin is 2.25°С for ERA-Interim and 3.92°С for ERA5, respectively. The comparison with data of drifting buoys allows us to speculate about the cause of such large errors in the reanalyses. Some buoys were installed from the air-based platform. In this case, the temperature sensor of the buoy was potentially buried in the snow cover that shielded it from the cold atmosphere and contributed to the heating due to the heat flux from the underlying layer of sea water. The assimilation of such data could be one of the reasons for the overestimation of air temperature over drifting ice in the both reanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Primary biological aerosol particles (PBAP) play an important role in the climate system, facilitating the formation of ice within clouds, consequently PBAP may be important in understanding the rapidly changing Arctic. Within this work, we use single-particle fluorescence spectroscopy to identify and quantify PBAP at an Arctic mountain site, with transmission electronic microscopy analysis supporting the presence of PBAP. We find that PBAP concentrations range between 10−3–10−1 L−1 and peak in summer. Evidences suggest that the terrestrial Arctic biosphere is an important regional source of PBAP, given the high correlation to air temperature, surface albedo, surface vegetation and PBAP tracers. PBAP clearly correlate with high-temperature ice nucleating particles (INP) (>-15 °C), of which a high a fraction (>90%) are proteinaceous in summer, implying biological origin. These findings will contribute to an improved understanding of sources and characteristics of Arctic PBAP and their links to INP. Primary bioaerosols, important for clouds and climate, were measured at an Arctic mountain site and traced to regional sources. Their seasonality was observed to peak in summer, where they significantly contribute to high-temperature ice nucleating particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, rapid Arctic sea ice loss has been observed, and its potential influences on the midlatitude weather and climate have been extensively examined, but strongly debated. This study instead investigates influences of Arctic sea ice loss on the Eastern Hemisphere westerly wind on the poleward side of the polar front jet (PFJ), which has significantly weakened in winter but strengthened in summer since 1980s. Observational analyses indicate that the Eastern Hemisphere PFJ anomalies in winter and summer are strongly correlated with Northern Hemisphere (NH) atmospheric circulation, surface air temperature and precipitation changes, and that the winter PFJ variability is significantly correlated to Barents-Kara sea ice anomalies from autumn and winter at interannual time scales. About 58% of the observed winter PFJ weakened trend during 1979–2014 is congruent with the autumn sea ice index over the Barents-Kara Seas. Atmospheric model ensemble simulations from four models show that Arctic sea ice loss contributes to Arctic warming in winter and reduces the northern Eurasia-pole temperature contrast, leading to an significant weakening winter PFJ. Ensemble mean effects of four models and each model due to Arctic sea ice loss explain about 10–20% of the observed winter PFJ weakening trend, because the model simulations underestimate observed impacts of sea ice reduction on Arctic troposphere warming. In summer, the strengthening PFJ is mostly controlled by increasing greenhouse gases and sea surface temperature changes outside the Arctic, but is little affected by Arctic sea ice loss. Our observational and numerical results consistently suggest that a dynamical pathway linking observed Arctic sea ice loss to northern Eurasian winter is through its weakening effect on the westerly wind on the poleward side of the PFJ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the interior regions of Eurasia and North America have experienced several unprecedentedly cold winters despite the global surface air temperature increases. One possible explanation of these increasing extreme cold winters comes from the so-called Warm Arctic Cold Continent (WACC) pattern, reflecting the effects of the amplified Arctic warming in driving the circulation change over surrounding continents. This study analyzed reanalysis data and model experiments forced by different levels of anthropogenic forcing. It is found that WACC exists on synoptic scales in observations, model's historical and even future runs. In the future, the analysis suggests a continued presence of WACC but with a slightly weakened cold extreme due to the overall warming. Warm Arctic events under the warmer climate will be associated with not only a colder continent in East Asia but also a warmer continent, depending on the teleconnection process that is also complicated by the warmer Arctic. Such an increasingly association suggests a reduction in potential predictability of the midlatitude winter anomalies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arctic regions experience strong seasonality and are largely affected by increasing temperature. This is particularly evident in the Kongsfjorden, which is surrounded by glaciers and is affected by seasonal and annual changes in temperature. It is largely influenced by glacial meltwater bringing in fluvial inputs such as total suspended matter (TSM) and warm Atlantic waters, which could alter the phytoplankton community. Seven stations in the Kongsfjorden representing glacier-influenced head (KF7, KF6, KF5), mid (KF4, KF3), and open region of the fjord (KF2 and KF1) were considered to evaluate the effect of TSM on phytoplankton community structure, abundance, chlorophyll a (Chl a), diversity index, evenness, and richness during summer 2011 (June) and 2018 (August) and related with atmospheric and hydrological parameters. The annual average atmospheric temperature (AAAT) over Ny-Ålesund showed an increase in temperature by a degree from −3.52 °C in 2011 to −2.44 °C in 2018, while the summer average atmospheric temperature (SAAT) over the same period increased from 5.80 to 6.16 °C. Increased freshening of the fjord led to an increase in TSM during 2018 which coincided with a decrease in Chl a by an order of magnitude. Although sea surface temperature (SST) was warmer in 2011, TSM was higher in 2018. The number of phytoplankton groups identified decreased from 11 in 2011 to 4 in 2018. A distinct alteration in phytoplankton community structure was observed from head fjord to open fjord with higher diversity observed during 2011 compared to 2018. This work highlights the effect of TSM on the phytoplankton community in the Kongsfjorden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arctic has been experiencing unprecedented changes in recent years due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions leading to what is known as Arctic amplification, whereby the Arctic is warming faster than any other area of the planet. While the majority of research has focused on the near-surface level heating and radiative forcing, one under-explored area of research is the change in temperature and heating rates throughout the stratosphere and upper troposphere, particularly during the winter months (December–February). For instance, reanalysis data has revealed that the Arctic middle-lower stratosphere has been warming at a rate of approximately 0.5 K/decade over the 1980–2019 period in contrast to the prevailing cooling trends in the other regions of the stratosphere. To understand what is driving these non-negligible temperature trends, this work investigates the underlying dynamical and radiative heating rates over the same 40-year period. It is found that dynamics is the main driver of the stratospheric temperature change in the Arctic, with the middle-lower stratospheric warming being largely explained by trends in adiabatic motion. In comparison, besides the dynamical effects, the tropospheric warming trend is also driven radiatively by surface warming and thermodynamically by latent heating. Lastly, it is found that the stratospheric warming trend mainly occurs in the years with sudden stratospheric warming events, highlighting the influence of these events in driving the stratospheric temperature trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large ensembles of the IPSL-CM6A-LR model output for the historical forcing experiment were employed to investigate the role of internal variability in the formation of the recent "warm Arctic–cold Eurasia" trend pattern in winter surface air temperature (SAT). The ensemble-mean SAT shows a positive trend over Arctic during 1990–2014, indicating a positive contribution of anthropogenic forcing to the warming Arctic. Over the region of central Eurasia, the ensemble-mean SAT trend is opposite to the observed trend. The winter SAT trends display remarkable inter-member diversity over the Barents–Kara Seas (BKS) region and central Eurasia, suggesting an important role played by internal variability. In addition to anthropogenic forcing, the results suggest that the barotropic anticyclone over northern Eurasia arising from internal variability can also contribute positively to the warming anomalies over the BKS region. On the other hand, through a fingerprint pattern matching method, it is found that the observed cooling trend over central Eurasia tends to be predominantly due to the internal variability. Finally, the results estimate that the internal variability can contribute to about 50–60% of the observed warming trend over the BKS region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Winter surface air temperature (Tas) over the Barents–Kara Seas (BKS) and other Arctic regions has experienced rapid warming since the late 1990s that has been linked to the concurring cooling over Eurasia, and these multidecadal trends are attributed partly to internal variability. However, how such variability is generated is unclear. Through analyses of observations and model simulations, we show that sea ice–air two-way interactions amplify multidecadal variability in sea-ice cover, sea surface temperatures (SST) and Tas from the North Atlantic to BKS, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) mainly through variations in surface fluxes. When sea ice is fixed in flux calculations, multidecadal variations are reduced substantially (by 20–50%) not only in Arctic Tas, but also in North Atlantic SST and AMOC. The results suggest that sea ice–air interactions are crucial for multidecadal climate variability in both the Arctic and North Atlantic, similar to air-sea interactions for tropical climate. Sea ice–air interactions greatly amplify multidecadal variability in Arctic air temperatures and sea ice cover, North Atlantic sea surface temperatures, and Atlantic meridional overturning circulation through changes in surface fluxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is known as one of the most sensitive regions to climate change, and it has experienced accelerated warming in recent decades. However, to what degree the TP warming amplification relates to remote forcing such as sea ice loss in the Arctic sea ice remains unclear. Here, we found that the decline of sea ice concentration over the Barents-Kara Sea (BKS) could account for 18–32% of the winter warming over the TP by comparing observational data and ensemble experiments from an atmospheric general circulation model. The reduced BKS sea ice and resultant upward turbulent heat fluxes can intensify a Rossby wave train propagating equatorward to the TP. As a result, the enhanced southwesterlies towards the TP strengthen the warm advection over most parts of the TP and lead to TP warming. In addition, an atmospheric teleconnection between the Arctic and the TP also exists in the interannual variability. That is, a tripole mode in air temperature, with warm centers in the Arctic and TP but a cold center in the mid-high latitudes of the Eurasian continent in between. Our results imply that the BKS sea ice loss could intensify such a tripole mode and thus enhancing the winter TP warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data on the spring phenology and reproductive parameters of Ross's Gull were collected during the period 1980–2013 on the delta of Lena River, northern Yakutia (71°42–74° N, 120°–129°30 E). During this period, significant changes in weather occurred. The mean annual temperature (F1.27 = 7.74, p < 0.04), the mean June temperature (F1.27 = 11.75, p < 0.002), and the summer temperature (F1.27 = 9.13, p < 0.005) increased, and the mean daily air temperatures crossing 0°C shifted to earlier dates (F1.26 = 14.73, p < 0.001). However, the duration of the period with positive temperatures increased only slightly (F1.26 = 3.53, p < 0.07). The arrival of Ross's gulls to the Lena Delta depended on the dates of snow melting (r = 0.62, p < 0.05), the mean June temperatures (r = –0.48, p < 0.01), and the minimal June daily temperatures (r = –0.70, p < 0.001). The maximum amplitude of fluctuations in egg numbers among all arctic gulls was revealed for complete clutches of Ross's Gull. In the Lena Delta, this amplitude was higher than in more southerly regions, where the nesting ecology of the species was mainly studied. The clutch size was negatively correlated with the dates of clutch initiation, the females that began to nest earlier showing larger clutch sizes. The reproductive effort of the species depended negatively on the temperature of the prenesting period. In cold years, the dates of nesting initiation shifted to later times (r = –0.75, p < 0.001) and the clutch size declined (F1,172 = 27.31, p < 0.00001). There was a tendency towards a decrease in the egg volume, which is the most noticeable from the dates of snow melting (F1,226 = 33.4, p < 0.00001) and a decrease in the average temperature of the prenesting period (F1,226 = 23.4, p < 0.00001). Despite an increase in the nesting season temperatures in the Lena Delta since 1982 and the earlier arrival of Ross's Gull (F1.27 = 14.87, p < 0.001), no shift in the dates of nesting initiation was detected. In our opinion, this is because the amplitude of interannual changes has a wider range than the long-term trend. The patterns of variations in the dates of nesting initiation and in the clutch sizes and egg volume are due to the dynamics of environmental conditions, primarily air temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous modelling and observational studies have shown discrepancies in the interannual relationship of winter surface air temperature (SAT) between Arctic and East Asia, stimulating the debate about whether Arctic change can influence midlatitude climate. This study uses two sets of coordinated experiments (EXP1 and EXP2) from six different atmospheric general circulation models. Both EXP1 and EXP2 consist of 130 ensemble members, each of which in EXP1 (EXP2) was forced by the same observed daily varying sea ice and daily varying (daily climatological) sea surface temperature (SST) for 1982–2014 but with different atmospheric initial conditions. Large spread exists among ensemble members in simulating the Arctic–East Asian SAT relationship. Only a fraction of ensemble members can reproduce the observed deep Arctic warming–cold continent pattern which extends from surface to upper troposphere, implying the important role of atmospheric internal variability. The mechanisms of deep Arctic warming and shallow Arctic warming are further distinguished. Arctic warming aloft is caused primarily by poleward moisture transport, which in conjunction with the surface warming coupled with sea ice melting constitutes the surface-amplified deep Arctic warming throughout the troposphere. These processes associated with the deep Arctic warming may be related to the forcing of remote SST when there is favorable atmospheric circulation such as Rossby wave train propagating from the North Atlantic into the Arctic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first part, this work reports that during the global "anthropopause" period, that was imposed in March and April 2020 for limiting the spread of COVID-19, the concentrations of basic air pollutants over Europe were reduced by up to 70%. During May and June, the gradual lift of the stringent measures resulted in the recovery of these reductions with pollution concentrations approaching the levels before the lockdown by the end of June 2020. In the second part, this work examines the alleged correlations between the reported cases of COVID-19 and temperature, humidity and particulate matter for March and April 2020 in Europe. It was found that decreasing temperatures and relative humidity with increasing concentrations of particulate matter are correlated with an increase in the number of reported cases during these 2 months. However, when these calculations were repeated for May and June, we found a remarkable drop in the significance of the correlations which leads us to question the generally accepted inverse relation between pandemics and air temperature at least during the warmer months. Such a relationship could not be supported in our study for SARS-CoV-2 virus and the question remains open. In the third and last part of this work, we examine the question referring to the origin of pandemics. In this context we have examined the hypothesis that the observed climate warming in Siberia and the Arctic and the thawing of permafrost could result to the release of trapped in the permafrost pathogens in the atmosphere. We find that although such relations cannot be directly justified, they present a possible horrifying mechanism for the origin of viruses in the future during the developing global warming of our planet in the decades to come. Overall the findings of our study indicate that: (1) the reduction of anthropogenic emissions in Europe during the "anthropopause" period of March and April 2020 was significant, but when the lockdown measures were raised the concentrations of atmospheric pollutants quickly recovered to pre-pandemic levels and therefore any possible climatic feedbacks were negligible; (2) no robust relationship between atmospheric parameters and the spread of COVID-19 cases can be justified in the warmer part of the year and (3) more research needs to be done regarding the possible links between climate change and the release of new pathogens from thawing of permafrost areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent Arctic warming has major influences on biological communities, especially in freshwater environments. There is substantial evidence that lake ecosystems in the Canadian Arctic and Fennoscandia are undergoing changes that have been linked to human-induced climate warming during the past 150–100 years. However, only few data linking recent climatic changes with the changes in biological communities are available from the Russian Arctic. We investigated a short sediment core (bottom of the core dates to 1830 CE) from Lake Bolshoy Kharbey, the biggest lake of the Bol'shezemelskaya Tundra, western Russian Arctic, using chironomid, cladocera, diatom and palynological analyses. Variations in biological proxy were linked to regional meteorological data and compared with the available sub-recent palaeoecological and hydrobiological studies from the region. The overall change in species composition was the smallest for terrestrial vegetation (0.485 SD) followed by cladoceran communities (0.966 SD). Chironomid taxonomic turnover was 1.331 SD, and the greatest rate of change was observed in diatom assemblages (1.701 SD). Changes in biological communities demonstrated a correlation with meteorologically recorded climatic parameters (air temperature and precipitation). The strongest taxonomic shifts in biological communities took place in 1880 and 1980. Both dates can be linked with prominent and recent climatic events: 1880 can be related to the end of the Little Ice Age in the region and 1980 is the beginning of the modern accelerating warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In which direction is the influence larger: from the Arctic to the mid-latitudes or vice versa? To answer this question, CO2 concentrations have been regionally increased in different latitudinal belts, namely in the Arctic, in the northern mid-latitudes, everywhere outside of the Arctic and globally, in a series of 150 year coupled model experiments with the AWI Climate Model. This method is applied to allow a decomposition of the response to increasing CO2 concentrations in different regions. It turns out that CO2 increase applied in the Arctic only is very efficient in heating the Arctic and that the energy largely remains in the Arctic. In the first 30 years after switching on the CO2 forcing some robust atmospheric circulation changes, which are associated with the surface temperature anomalies including local cooling of up to 1 °C in parts of North America, are simulated. The synoptic activity is decreased in the mid-latitudes. Further into the simulation, surface temperature and atmospheric circulation anomalies become less robust. When quadrupling the CO2 concentration south of 60° N, the March Arctic sea ice volume is reduced by about two thirds in the 150 years of simulation time. When quadrupling the CO2 concentration between 30 and 60° N, the March Arctic sea ice volume is reduced by around one third, the same amount as if quadrupling CO2 north of 60° N. Both atmospheric and oceanic northward energy transport across 60° N are enhanced by up to 0.1 PW and 0.03 PW, respectively, and winter synoptic activity is increased over the Greenland, Norwegian, Iceland (GIN) seas. To a lesser extent the same happens when the CO2 concentration between 30 and 60° N is only increased to 1.65 times the reference value in order to consider the different size of the forcing areas. The increased northward energy transport, leads to Arctic sea ice reduction, and consequently Arctic amplification is present without Arctic CO2 forcing in all seasons but summer, independent of where the forcing is applied south of 60° N. South of the forcing area, both in the Arctic and northern mid-latitude forcing simulations, the warming is generally limited to less than 0.5 °C. In contrast, north of the forcing area in the northern mid-latitude forcing experiments, the warming amounts to generally more than 1 °C close to the surface, except for summer. This is a strong indication that the influence of warming outside of the Arctic on the Arctic is substantial, while forcing applied only in the Arctic mainly materializes in a warming Arctic, with relatively small implications for non-Arctic regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The monthly and seasonal anomalies of temperature and precipitation over the Arctic are considered depending on the global and regional patterns of atmospheric circulation. Climate indices are used to identify patterns. The composite analysis allowed identifying the geographic regions where the influence of atmospheric circulation modes on temperature and precipitation is statistically significant. The contingency of atmospheric circulation patterns in the Northern Hemisphere was statistically estimated. Special attention is paid to the case studies where the extreme episodes of circulation indices are associated with the significant anomalies of air temperature and precipitation. The potential is demonstrated of the numerical simulation of extreme episodes on monthly and seasonal timescales with the global semi-Lagrangian model SL-AV developed in the Institute of Numerical Mathematics jointly with the Hydrometcenter of Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades, Arctic communities have been reporting that weather conditions are becoming less predictable. Most scientific studies have not been able to consistently confirm such a trend. The question regarding the possible increase in weather variability was addressed here based on daily minimum and maximum surface air temperature time series from 15 high latitude Arctic stations from Canada, Norway, and the Russian Federation. A range of analysis methods were applied, distinguished mainly by the way in which they treat time scale. Statistical L-moments were determined for temporal windows of different lengths. While the picture provided by L-scale and L-kurtosis is not consistent with an increasing variability, L-skewness was found to change towards more positive values, reflecting an enhancement of warm spells. Haar wavelet analysis was applied both to the entire time series and to running windows. Persistence diagrams were generated based on running windows advancing through time and on local slopes of Haar analysis graphs; they offer a more nuanced view on variability by reflecting its change over time on a range of temporal scales. Local increases in variability could be identified in some cases, but no consistent change was detected in any of the stations over the studied temporal scales. The possibility for other intervals of temporal scale (e.g., days, hours, minutes) to potentially reveal a different situation cannot be ruled out. However, in the light of the results presented here, explanations for the discrepancy between variability perception and results of pattern analysis might have to be explored using an integrative approach to weather variables such as air temperature, cloud cover, precipitation, wind, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yedoma layer, a permafrost layer containing a massive amount of underground ice in the Arctic regions, is reported to be rapidly thawing. In this study, we develop the Permafrost Degradation and Greenhouse gasses Emission Model (PDGEM), which describes the thawing of the Arctic permafrost including the Yedoma layer due to climate change and the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The PDGEM includes the processes by which high-concentration GHGs (CO2 and CH4) contained in the pores of the Yedoma layer are released directly by dynamic degradation, as well as the processes by which GHGs are released by the decomposition of organic matter in the Yedoma layer and other permafrost. Our model simulations show that the total GHG emissions from permafrost degradation in the RCP8.5 scenario was estimated to be 31-63 PgC for CO2 and 1261-2821 TgCH4 for CH4 (68th percentile of the perturbed model simulations, corresponding to a global average surface air temperature change of 0.05–0.11 °C), and 14-28 PgC for CO2 and 618-1341 TgCH4 for CH4 (0.03–0.07 °C) in the RCP2.6 scenario. GHG emissions resulting from the dynamic degradation of the Yedoma layer were estimated to be less than 1% of the total emissions from the permafrost in both scenarios, possibly because of the small area ratio of the Yedoma layer. An advantage of PDGEM is that geographical distributions of GHG emissions can be estimated by combining a state-of-the-art land surface model featuring detailed physical processes with a GHG release model using a simple scheme, enabling us to consider a broad range of uncertainty regarding model parameters. In regions with large GHG emissions due to permafrost thawing, it may be possible to help reduce GHG emissions by taking measures such as restraining land development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]