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The recent accelerated Arctic sea ice decline has been proposed as a possible forcing factor for midlatitude circulation changes, which can be projected onto the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and/or North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) mode. However, the timing and physical mechanisms linking AO responses to the Arctic sea ice forcing are not entirely understood. In this study, the authors suggest a connection between November sea ice extent in the Barents and Kara Seas and the following winter's atmospheric circulation in terms of the fast sea ice retreat and the subsequent modification of local air-sea heat fluxes. In particular, the dynamical processes that link November sea ice in the Barents and Kara Seas with the development of AO anomalies in February is explored. In response to the lower-tropospheric warming associated with the initial thermal effect of the sea ice loss, the large-scale atmospheric circulation goes through a series of dynamical adjustment processes: The decelerated zonal-mean zonal wind anomalies propagate gradually from the subarctic to midlatitudes in about one month. The equivalent barotropic AO dipole pattern develops in January because of wave-mean flow interaction and firmly establishes itself in February following the weakening and warming of the stratospheric polar vortex. This connection between sea ice loss and the AO mode is robust on time scales ranging from interannual to decadal. Therefore, the recent winter AO weakening and the corresponding midlatitude climate change may be partly associated with the early winter sea ice loss in the Barents and Kara Seas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reveals that sea ice in the Barents and Kara Seas plays a crucial role in establishing a new Arctic coupled climate system. The early winter sea ice before 1998 shows double dipole patterns over the Arctic peripheral seas. This pattern, referred to as the early winter quadrupole pattern, exhibits the anticlockwise sequential sea ice anomalies propagation from the Greenland Sea to the Barents-Kara Seas and to the Bering Sea from October to December. This early winter in-phase ice variability contrasts to the out-of-phase relationship in late winter. The mean temperature advection and stationary wave heat flux divergence associated with the atmospheric zonal wave-2 pattern are responsible for the early winter in-phase pattern. Since the end of the last century, the early winter quadrupole pattern has broken down because of the rapid decline of sea ice extent in the Barents-Kara Seas. This remarkable ice retreat modifies the local ocean-atmosphere heat exchange, forcing an anomalous low air pressure over the Barents-Kara Seas. The subsequent collapse of the atmospheric zonal wave-2 pattern is likely responsible for the breakdown of the early winter sea ice quadrupole pattern after 1998. Therefore, the sea ice anomalies in the Barents-Kara Seas play a key role in establishing new atmosphere-sea ice coupled relationships in the warming Arctic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]