Future loss of Arctic sea-ice cover could drive a substantial decrease in California's rainfall

Cvijanovic, Ivana, Santer, Benjamin D., Bonfils, Céline, Lucas, Donald D., Chiang, John C.H. and Zimmerman, Susan (2017) Future loss of Arctic sea-ice cover could drive a substantial decrease in California's rainfall. Nature Communications, 8 (1). ISSN 2041-1723

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Abstract

From 2012 to 2016, California experienced one of the worst droughts since the start of observational records. As in previous dry periods, precipitation-inducing winter storms were steered away from California by a persistent atmospheric ridging system in the North Pacific. Here we identify a new link between Arctic sea-ice loss and the North Pacific geopotential ridge development. In a two-step teleconnection, sea-ice changes lead to reorganization of tropical convection that in turn triggers an anticyclonic response over the North Pacific, resulting in significant drying over California. These findings suggest that the ability of climate models to accurately estimate future precipitation changes over California is also linked to the fidelity with which future sea-ice changes are simulated. We conclude that sea-ice loss of the magnitude expected in the next decades could substantially impact California's precipitation, thus highlighting another mechanism by which human-caused climate change could exacerbate future California droughts.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Publisher Copyright: © 2017 The Author(s).
Uncontrolled Keywords:	chemistry(all),biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology(all),general,physics and astronomy(all),sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1600
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	18 Mar 2026 13:30
Last Modified:	23 Mar 2026 01:21
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102417
DOI:	10.1038/s41467-017-01907-4

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