LAUSR

AbstractObservational studies link a persistent dipole of autumn and winter snow cover anomalies over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and Mongolia with winter Pacific–North American (PNA)-like atmospheric variations. This study investigates atmospheric responses to such snow forcings using multiple ensemble transient integrations of the CAM4 and CLM4.0 models. Model boundary conditions are based on climatological sea ice extent and sea surface temperature, and satellite observations of snow cover extent (SCE) and snow water equivalent (SWE) over the TP and Mongolia from October to March in 1997/98 (heavy TP and light Mongolia snow) and 1984/85 (light TP and heavy Mongolia snow), with model-derived SCE and SWE elsewhere. In various forcing experiments, the ensemble-mean difference between simulations with these two extreme snow states identifies local, distant, concurrent, and delayed climatic responses. The main atmospheric responses to a dipole of high TP and low Mongolia SCE persisting from October to March (v...