Melting Ice in the Polar North Drives Weather in Europe
Drip by drip, steady ice loss in the Arctic and sub-Arctic is injecting enormous quantities of meltwater into the North Atlantic Ocean. Researchers have now shown how all that fresh water ultimately drives more extreme summer weather over Europe. These results might enable better long-term weather predictions in Europe, the team concluded.
Every year, the Arctic and sub-Arctic lose several hundred cubic kilometers, on average, of both sea ice and glacial ice due to rising temperatures. The fresh water liberated by all that melting eventually enters the North Atlantic, where it aggregates into so-called freshwater anomalies. Those structures, which tend to lurk on the surface of the ocean because of their relatively low density, can measure thousands of kilometers in extent and several tens of meters deep in winter.
Freshwater anomalies in the North Atlantic have been shown to precede European heat waves. However, the mechanism—or mechanisms—behind that linkage has long remained unknown, said Marilena Oltmanns, an ocean and climate scientist at the National Oceanography Centre in the United Kingdom. That question is increasingly relevant given rapidly warming temperatures in the Arctic and recent weather extremes—such as heat waves and droughts—that have occurred in Europe, Oltmanns and her colleagues suggested.
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