The European Union in the Arctic: A Pole Position? Bruges Regional Integration & Global Governance Papers 4/2012, December 2012

With temperatures in the Arctic rising at twice the pace of anywhere else in the world, the European Union (EU) decided in 2008 to begin formulating an overall Arctic policy tackling maritime, environmental, energy and transport challenges. This attempt to draft a comprehensive policy on a topic that the EU had rarely touched upon unavoidably ran up against other existing strategies from Arctic and non-Arctic states. Against this background, this paper examines whether the EU’s current Arctic policy is conducive to framing a strategy that is both correctly targeted and flexible enough to represent Europe’s interests. It shows that the EU’s approach can serve as an effective foreign policy tool to establish the Union’s legitimacy as an Arctic player. However, the EU’s Arctic policy is still underestimating its potential to find common grounds with the strategic partners Russia and China. A properly targeted Arctic policy could help influence Russia over the EU’s interests in the Northern Sea Route and strengthen cooperation with China in an endeavour to gain recognition as relevant Arctic players.

Density dependence and phenological mismatch: consequences for growth and survival of sub-arctic nesting Canada Geese

The extent to which species are plastic in the timing of their reproductive events relative to phenology suggests how climate change might affect their demography. An ecological mismatch between the timing of hatch for avian species and the peak availability in quality and quantity of forage for rapidly growing offspring might ultimately affect recruitment to the breeding population unless individuals can adjust the timing of breeding to adapt to changing phenology. We evaluated effects of goose density, hatch timing relative to forage plant phenology, and weather indices on annual growth of pre-fledging Canada geese (Branta canadensis) from 1993-2010 at Akimiski Island, Nunavut. We found effects of both density and hatch timing relative to forage plant phenology; the earlier that eggs hatched relative to forage plant phenology, the larger the mean gosling size near fledging. Goslings were smallest in years when hatch was latest relative to forage plant phenology, and when local abundance of breeding adults was highest. We found no evidence for a trend in relative hatch timing, but it was apparent that in early springs, Canada geese tended to hatch later relative to vegetation phenology, suggesting that geese were not always able to adjust the timing of nesting as rapidly as vegetation phenology was advanced. Analyses using forage biomass information revealed a positive relationship between gosling size and per capita biomass availability, suggesting a causal mechanism for the density effect. The effects of weather parameters explained additional variation in mean annual gosling size, although total June and July rainfall had a small additive effect on gosling size. Modelling of annual first-year survival probability using mean annual gosling size as an annual covariate revealed a positive relationship, suggesting that reduced gosling growth negatively impacts recruitment.

Stratospheric influence on baroclinic lifecycles and its connection to the Arctic Oscillation

Using an idealized primitive equation model, we investigate how stratospheric conditions alter the development of baroclinic instability in the troposphere. Starting from the lifecycle paradigm of Thorncroft et al., we consider the evolution of baroclinic lifecycles resulting from the addition of a stratospheric jet to the LC1 initial condition. We find that the addition of the stratospheric jet yields a net surface geopotential height anomaly that strongly resembles the Arctic Oscillation. With the additional modification of the tropospheric winds to resemble the high-AO climatology, the surface response is amplified by a factor 10 and, though dominated by the tropospheric changes, shows similar sensitivity to the stratospheric conditions.

On the climate response of the low-latitude Pacific Ocean to changes in the global freshwater cycle

Under global warming, the predicted intensification of the global freshwater cycle will modify the net freshwater flux at the ocean surface. Since the freshwater flux maintains ocean salinity structures, changes to the density-driven ocean circulation are likely. A modified ocean circulation could further alter the climate, potentially allowing rapid changes, as seen in the past. The relevant feedback mechanisms and timescales are poorly understood in detail, however, especially at low latitudes where the effects of salinity are relatively subtle. In an attempt to resolve some of these outstanding issues, we present an investigation of the climate response of the low-latitude Pacific region to changes in freshwater forcing. Initiated from the present-day thermohaline structure, a control run of a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model is compared with a perturbation run in which the net freshwater flux is prescribed to be zero over the ocean. Such an extreme experiment helps to elucidate the general adjustment mechanisms and their timescales. The atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are held constant, and we restrict our attention to the adjustment of the upper 1,000 m of the Pacific Ocean between 40°N and 40°S, over 100 years. In the perturbation run, changes to the surface buoyancy, near-surface vertical mixing and mixed-layer depth are established within 1 year. Subsequently, relative to the control run, the surface of the low-latitude Pacific Ocean in the perturbation run warms by an average of 0.6°C, and the interior cools by up to 1.1°C, after a few decades. This vertical re-arrangement of the ocean heat content is shown to be achieved by a gradual shutdown of the heat flux due to isopycnal (i.e. along surfaces of constant density) mixing, the vertical component of which is downwards at low latitudes. This heat transfer depends crucially upon the existence of density-compensating temperature and salinity gradients on isopycnal surfaces. The timescale of the thermal changes in the perturbation run is therefore set by the timescale for the decay of isopycnal salinity gradients in response to the eliminated freshwater forcing, which we demonstrate to be around 10-20 years. Such isopycnal heat flux changes may play a role in the response of the low-latitude climate to a future accelerated freshwater cycle. Specifically, the mechanism appears to represent a weak negative sea surface temperature feedback, which we speculate might partially shield from view the anthropogenically-forced global warming signal at low latitudes. Furthermore, since the surface freshwater flux is shown to play a role in determining the ocean's thermal structure, it follows that evaporation and/or precipitation biases in general circulation models are likely to cause sea surface temperature biases.

Independent component analysis of climate data: A new look at EOF rotation

The complexity inherent in climate data makes it necessary to introduce more than one statistical tool to the researcher to gain insight into the climate system. Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis is one of the most widely used methods to analyze weather/climate modes of variability and to reduce the dimensionality of the system. Simple structure rotation of EOFs can enhance interpretability of the obtained patterns but cannot provide anything more than temporal uncorrelatedness. In this paper, an alternative rotation method based on independent component analysis (ICA) is considered. The ICA is viewed here as a method of EOF rotation. Starting from an initial EOF solution rather than rotating the loadings toward simplicity, ICA seeks a rotation matrix that maximizes the independence between the components in the time domain. If the underlying climate signals have an independent forcing, one can expect to find loadings with interpretable patterns whose time coefficients have properties that go beyond simple noncorrelation observed in EOFs. The methodology is presented and an application to monthly means sea level pressure (SLP) field is discussed. Among the rotated (to independence) EOFs, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) pattern, an Arctic Oscillation–like pattern, and a Scandinavian-like pattern have been identified. There is the suggestion that the NAO is an intrinsic mode of variability independent of the Pacific.

Impact of Resolution on the Tropical Pacific Circulation in a Matrix of Coupled Models

Results are presented from a matrix of coupled model integrations, using atmosphere resolutions of 135 and 90 km, and ocean resolutions of 1° and 1/3°, to study the impact of resolution on simulated climate. The mean state of the tropical Pacific is found to be improved in the models with a higher ocean resolution. Such an improved mean state arises from the development of tropical instability waves, which are poorly resolved at low resolution; these waves reduce the equatorial cold tongue bias. The improved ocean state also allows for a better simulation of the atmospheric Walker circulation. Several sensitivity studies have been performed to further understand the processes involved in the different component models. Significantly decreasing the horizontal momentum dissipation in the coupled model with the lower-resolution ocean has benefits for the mean tropical Pacific climate, but decreases model stability. Increasing the momentum dissipation in the coupled model with the higher-resolution ocean degrades the simulation toward that of the lower-resolution ocean. These results suggest that enhanced ocean model resolution can have important benefits for the climatology of both the atmosphere and ocean components of the coupled model, and that some of these benefits may be achievable at lower ocean resolution, if the model formulation allows.

Observed trends and teleconnections of the Siberian high: A recently declining center of action

This study investigates variability in the intensity of the wintertime Siberian high (SH) by defining a robust SH index (SHI) and correlating it with selected meteorological fields and teleconnection indices. A dramatic trend of -2.5 hPa decade(-1) has been found in the SHI between 1978 and 2001 with unprecedented (since 1871) low values of the SHI. The weakening of the SH has been confirmed by analyzing different historical gridded analyses and individual station observations of sea level pressure (SLP) and excluding possible effects from the conversion of surface pressure to SLP. SHI correlation maps with various meteorological fields show that SH impacts on circulation and temperature patterns extend far outside the SH source area extending from the Arctic to the tropical Pacific. Advection of warm air from eastern Europe has been identified as the main mechanism causing milder than normal conditions over the Kara and Laptev Seas in association with a strong SH. Despite the strong impacts of the variability in the SH on climatic variability across the Northern Hemisphere, correlations between the SHI and the main teleconnection indices of the Northern Hemisphere are weak. Regression analysis has shown that teleconnection indices are not able to reproduce the interannual variability and trends in the SH. The inclusion of regional surface temperature in the regression model provides closer agreement between the original and reconstructed SHI.