The Arctic Oscillation and Its Impacton Temperature and Precipitationin Northern Eurasia in the 20th Century

V. N. Kryzhov and O. V. Gorelits

Presented is the review of the modern knowledge of the Arctic Oscillation (AO). Demon- strated is the relation of air temperature and precipitation in Northern Eurasia to this dominant type of wintertime atmospheric variability at northern extratropical latitudes. It is demonstrated that AO is a result of the coupling between the troposphere and stratosphere. The attention is paid to the long-range forecasting of AO index and to the factors complicating the forecasting. Given are the new results of the authors’ research. Used is the wintertime AO index computed by the authors from the 20th Century Reanalysis dataset. The high- and low-frequency components of AO index variability and the periods of statistically significant trends are analyzed using the 112-year series (1901–2012). Demonstrated is the key impact of wintertime AO phase on the anomalies of air temperature and precipitation in Northern Eurasia at the time scale of years and decades. This impact is manifested in the northern part of Northern Eurasia in the prevalence of warmer and wetter winters at the positive AO phase and of colder and drier winters at the negative AO phase. The precipitation anomalies of opposite sign prevail in the southern part of Northern Eurasia. It is demonstrated that the winter AO phase affects the terms of the springtime air temperature transition to positive values.