Ural Blocking Driving Arctic Sea-ice Loss, Cold Eurasia and Stratospheric Vortex Weakening in Autumn and Early Winter 2016-2017

This study investigates the atmospheric dynamics that led to the repeated cold surges over mid-latitude Eurasia, exceptionally warm conditions and sea-ice loss over the Arctic, as well as the unseasonable weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex in autumn and early winter 2016-2017. We use ERA-Interim reanalysis data and COBE sea-ice and sea surface temperature observational data to trace the pathways that caused these extreme dynamics. Following abnormally low sea-ice conditions in early autumn over the Pacific sector of the Arctic basin, blocking anticyclones became dominant over Eurasia throughout autumn. Ural blocking (UB) activity was four times above climatological levels and was organized in several successive events. UB episodes had a key role in the unprecedented sea-ice loss observed in late autumn 2016 over the Barents-Kara Seas (BKS) and the weakening of the stratospheric vortex. Each episode induced circulation anomalies that resulted in cold air advection to its south and warm advection to its north. The near-surface warming anomalies over the Arctic and cooling anomalies over mid-latitude Eurasia varied in phase with the life cycles of UB episodes. The sea-ice cover minimum over the BKS in 2016 was not observed in late summer but in mid-November and December, shortly after the two strongest UB episodes. Each UB episode drove intense upward flux of atmospheric wave activity that resulted in unseasonable weakening of the stratospheric vortex in November. The impact of this weakening can be linked to the migration of blocking activity and cold spells towards Europe in early winter 2017.