Seasonal co-variability of surface downwelling longwave radiation for the 1982–2009 period in the Arctic

Trends and variability of the Arctic sea ice extent depend on various physical processes, including those related to changes in radiative fluxes, which are associated with cloudiness and water vapour and, in turn, with the atmospheric moisture transport over the Arctic. Aim of this work was: (i) to extract seasonal spatial patterns of the co-variability between the sea ice concentration (SIC) and the surface downwelling longwave radiation (SDL) in the Arctic Ocean during the 1982–2009 period; and (ii) to estimate the correlation coefficients between these patterns and the indices associated to some climate oscillation modes (AO, NAO, PNA, PDO and AMO). Maximum Covariance Analysis (MCA) was the main technique used in this study. Among our results, we highlight two areas of maximum co-variability SIC/SDL centered over the Barents Sea in winter and over the Chukchi Sea in summer. In addition, some statistically significant correlations (at 95 %) between the spatial patterns of co-variability and climate oscillation indices were assessed, e.g. with PDO and AMO in November– January, with NAO and AMO in May–July, and with PNA in August–October.