Arctic Amplification and Its Impact on Extreme Events in Midlatitudes and Tropics

In last four decades the Arctic climate is warming very rapidly at a rate more than three times the global average temperature rise, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification. This amplification in the Arctic and unprecedented sea-ice loss is one of the most pronounced signals of anthropogenic climate change. This rapid sea-ice loss is strongly linked with the increasing frequency and persistence of extreme weather events across the mid-latitudes e.g. atmospheric and marine heatwaves, droughts, snowstorm, cold events, heavy precipitation, etc. Most of the previous studies had examined these extreme events during winter season and in the midlatitudes, while studies on the influence of Arctic warming on extreme events during summer and in the tropics are very limited. Secondly, most of the previous studies are performed using the observation, reanalysis and model datasets e.g. CMIP6 based model simulations. But CMIP6 has several limitations in simulating the Arctic sea ice–atmosphere interactions, which demands machine learning or deep techniques to improve the accuracy and reliability of model simulations.

This project has four key objectives: (a) to improve the understanding of the interaction between Arctic warming and sea-ice content variability on extreme events over mid-latitudes and tropics and during the summer and winter seasons either by stratospheric pathways or Rossby wave-train propagation, (b) to diagnose and evaluate the current CMIP6 and the machine learning/deep learning model outputs in simulating the impacts of Arctic sea-ice change anomalies on climate extreme events, (c) to investigate the future changes in frequency and intensity of the extreme events under high, medium, low emission and carbon neutral scenarios and (d) finally to study the regional scale implications of these extreme events on tropical rainforests (e.g. Amazon, Africa, Southeast Asia, etc.) and drylands.

Scope of the Research Topics:
• Arctic warming and its impact on Climate extreme events e.g. drought, heatwaves, cold events etc. during winter and summer seasons - frequency, intensity and physical mechanisms.
• Understanding the changes in Arctic sea-ice change and atmosphere interaction under climate change over midlatitudes and tropics- under high, medium, low and Carbon neutral scenarios.
• Investigate the regional scale impacts of the extreme events on the tropical rainforests, drylands etc.
• Use of observation, reanalysis, model simulations and machine/deep learning techniques in simulating the Arctic warming/sea-ice change on climate extreme events.
Types of manuscript: Articles, Letters, Review paper.