《Linkages between Arctic sea ice cover largescale atmospheric circulation and weather and ice conditions in the Gulf of Bothnia Baltic Sea》.pdfVIP

•Article • Advances in Polar Science doi: 10.13679/j.advps.2014.4.00289 December 2014 Vol. 25 No. 4: 289-299 Linkages between Arctic sea ice cover, large-scale atmospheric circulation, and weather and ice conditions in the Gulf of Bothnia, Baltic Sea 1* 1 1 1,2 2 Timo Vihma , Bin Cheng , Petteri Uotila , WEI Lixin QIN Ting 1 Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Helsinki, Finland; 2 National Marine Environmental Forecasting Centre (NMEFC), Beijing 100081, China Received 11 October 2014; accepted 20 December 2014 Abstract During years 1980/1981–2012/2013, inter-annual variations in sea ice and snow thickness in Kemi, in the northern coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, Baltic Sea, depended on the air temperature, snow fall, and rain. Inter-annual variations in the November—April mean air temperature, accumulated total precipitation, snow fall, and rain, as well as ice and snow thickness in Kemi and ice concentration in the Gulf of Bothnia correlated with inter-annual variations of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), Arctic Oscillation (AO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Scandinavian Pattern (SCA), and Polar / Eurasian Pattern (PEU). The strong role of PDO is a new finding. In general, the relationships with PDO were approximately equally strong as those with AO, but rain and sea ice concentration were better correlated with PDO. The correlations with PDO were, however, not persistent; for a study period since 1950 the correlations were much lower. During 1980/1981—2012/2013, also the Pacific / No