Sun, X., Y. Gao, X.-Q. Yang, Z. Fang, X. Zhang, S. Yuan, N. S. Keenlyside 2025: Dominant modes of interannual winter SAT covariability between the Arctic and the Tibetan Plateau: spatio-temporal structures and dynamical linkages. Clim Dyn. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-025-07711-x

Summary: As two highly sensitive climate zones in the world, the Arctic and Tibetan Plateau (TP) regions respectively exhibit significantly uneven spatial variability in surface air temperature (SAT) and greatly influence the Eurasian climate on the interannual timescale. However, despite the synchronized warming trends in these two regions, their interannual spatio-temporal connection remains unclear. In this study, we applied the singular value decomposition (SVD) method to ERA5 wintertime surface air temperature anomalies to explore the dominant modes of SAT covariability between the Arctic and TP. We identified two major interannual modes: the dipolar Arctic-uniform TP (DA-UTP) and the quadrupolar Arctic-dipolar TP (QA-DTP), which together explain 82% of their covariance. The DA-UTP mode resembles the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, characterized by a hemispheric-scale pattern of “warm northern North America—cold northern Eurasia—warm TP”, while the QA-DTP mode exhibits a meridional teleconnection in the eastern hemisphere, featuring “warm Barents and Kara Seas—cold Eurasia—warm southern TP”. Both modes primarily draw energy from the North Atlantic Ocean and affect East Asian through the atmospheric Rossby wave train. The corresponding North Atlantic SST anomalies display a tripolar distribution, with the center of the negative SST gradient anomaly in the second mode shifted southward compared to the first. These two climate modes further modulate synoptic and sub-seasonal-to-seasonal winter temperature anomalies in Eurasia by altering the hemispheric-scale temperature gradient. The findings of this study contribute to a deeper knowledge and understanding of the interannual spatial and temporal relationships of wintertime surface temperature anomalies between the Arctic and TP.

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