Potential Impacts of Winter Arctic Sea Ice on Subsequent Spring Thermal Condition Over the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Spring thermal forcing over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is largely determined by surface sensible heating (SSH), which is an important fuel for atmospheric circulations over subtropics and even the globe. However, insufficient efforts were devoted on exploring the potential influencing factors of spring TP's SSH. In the current study, observational analysis and model results confirm that the sea ice concentration in the north of Greenland can act as a precursor. Specifically, the winter shrinkage of the sea ice concentration can stimulate a meridional Rossby wave train, with a remarkable positive‐negative‐positive pattern of geopotential height anomalies controlling the Arctic, western Eurasia, and the southeastern Mediterranean, respectively. This teleconnection is equivalent barotropic in the whole troposphere, which shifts southeastward from winter to spring, with a significant anomalous anticyclone and increased geopotential height dominating the western TP in spring. The surface northeasterly anomalies in the southeastern flank of the anticyclone decrease the climatological westerlies and weaken the SSH over the central‐southern TP. Existing literature mainly focused on the Arctic‐TP relationship in autumn and winter. Our finding can not only provide a new insight onto the variation of spring thermal condition over the TP, but also deepen our knowledge of cross‐seasonal relationships between the Arctic and the TP with similar snow‐ice albedo feedback.