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Modulation of hemispheric sea-ice cover by ENSO events

Nature volume 373, pages 503–506 (1995)Cite this article

Abstract

THE El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a quasiperiodic vari-ation in climate which arises from a complex interaction between the tropical Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere1. ENSO events, which occur every two to seven years, are the largest source of interannual variability of temperature and precipitation on a global scale, although their effects are most profound in the tropics1. Observations of sea-ice margins have been used to monitor global climate changes on timescales of greater than a decade2, and there is some evidence for interannual variations in records of sea-ice cover3. But short-term changes in sea-ice cover are masked by pronounced seasonal variations, making it difficult to correlate them with specific climate phenomena. Using a multiple-window harmonic analysis technique4–8, I show here that time series of sea-ice cover from the Arctic and Antarctic contain statistically significant quasi-biennial and quasi-quadrennial periodicities that agree well with variations in the ENSO index. The response of sea ice to these two frequency components varies greatly for different regions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oceans and Ice Branch, Laboratory for Hydrospheric Research, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, 20771, USA

    Per Gloersen

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  1. Per Gloersen
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Gloersen, P. Modulation of hemispheric sea-ice cover by ENSO events. Nature 373, 503–506 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1038/373503a0

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