Scientists have discovered that the Arctic region may actually become less stormy in the future, even as the climate continues to warm. This is the opposite of what many people expect.
The researchers studied a lake on the island of Svalbard, located far north of Norway. They looked at the sediments at the bottom of the lake, which can provide a record of past climate conditions.
The team found that periods of colder summer temperatures in the Arctic were linked to more intense winds and stormier weather. In contrast, warmer summer periods tended to have calmer winds.
This is surprising because as the Arctic continues to warm and lose its sea ice cover, scientists had predicted that the region would become stormier. The open water would allow winds to pick up more speed and power, leading to bigger waves and more coastal erosion.
However, the new study suggests that the relationship between Arctic warming and storminess may be more complicated.
“Our findings challenge the emerging notion that a warmer and less icy future Arctic will be stormier,” the researchers write in the journal Nature Communications.
The study looked at a 9,700-year record from a coastal lake on the island of Sørkappøya, located at the southern tip of the Svalbard archipelago. The researchers used multiple methods to analyze the sediments, including X-ray scans, measurements of density and organic matter, and detailed analysis of the grain size of the sediments.
This allowed them to reconstruct changes in wind strength over the centuries. They found that periods of stronger Easterly winds (coming from the east) and Westerly winds (coming from the west) coincided with colder regional climate periods.
For example, the researchers identified several multi-century periods of increased wind activity, including around 1500-3000, 4500, 6500, and 7000-9500 years ago. These all corresponded with known cold periods in the North Atlantic region.
The researchers suggest that this relationship between colder summers and stormier weather may be due to changes in large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. Colder conditions could influence the behavior of the jet stream and other wind systems in ways that increase storminess.
In contrast, the warming and sea ice loss that the Arctic is currently experiencing may actually lead to calmer, less stormy conditions, at least during the summer months.
“Our findings can be relevant for the predictability of regional wind change, as the future will be shaped by melting ice sheets and warming like the Early Holocene,” the researchers write.
However, they caution that more research is needed from other parts of the Arctic to confirm the representativeness of their findings from the Svalbard region.
Overall, this study provides important new insights into how the Arctic climate system works, challenging the common assumption that a warmer future will necessarily mean a stormier Arctic. The complex relationships between temperature, sea ice, and wind patterns are still not fully understood.
Reference: Stachowska, Z., van der Bilt, W. G., & Strzelecki, M. C. (2024). Coastal lake sediments from Arctic Svalbard suggest colder summers are stormier. Nature Communications, 15(9688). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-53875-1
