• The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
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• v.33 no.1_2
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• pp.1-23
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• 2021

In response to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases, the global mean temperature is rising rapidly. In particular, the warming of the Arctic is two to three times faster than the rest. Associated with the rapid Arctic warming, the sea ice shows decreasing trends in all seasons. The faster Arctic warming is due to ice-albedo feedback by the presence of snow and ice in polar regions, which have higher reflectivity than the ocean, the bare land, or vegetation, higher long-wave heat loss to space than lower latitudes by lower surface temperature in the Arctic than lower latitudes, different stability of atmosphere between the Arctic and lower latitudes, where low stability leads to larger heat losses to atmosphere from surface by larger latent heat fluxes than the Arctic, where high stability, especially in winter, prohibits losing heat to atmosphere, increase in clouds and water vapor in the Arctic atmosphere that subsequently act as green house gases, and finally due to the increase in sensible heat fluxes from low latitudes to the Arctic via lower troposphere. In contrast to the rapid Arctic warming, in midlatitudes, especially in eastern Asia and eastern North America, cold air outbreaks occur more frequently and last longer in recent decades. Two pathways have been suggested to link the Arctic warming to cold air outbreaks over midlatitudes. The first is through troposphere in synoptic-scales by enhancing the Siberian high via a development of Rossby wave trains initiated from the Arctic, especially the Barents-Kara Seas. The second is via stratosphere by activating planetary waves to stratosphere and beyond, that leads to warming in the Arctic stratosphere and increase in geopotential height that subsequently weakens the polar vortex and results in cold air outbreaks in midlatitudes for several months. There exists lags between the Arctic warming and cold events in midlatitudes. Thus, understanding chain reactions from the Arctic warming to midlatitude cooling could help improve a predictability of seasonal winter weather in midlatitudes. This study reviews the results on the Arctic warming and its connection to midlatitudes and examines the trends in surface temperature and the Arctic sea ice.

• The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
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• v.32 no.1_2
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• pp.30-40
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• 2018

In response to the increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases, the Arctic temperature is increasing rapidly by 2-3 times other regions. This larger Arctic warming than lower latitudes is called 'Arctic Amplification'(Overland et al., 2017; Goose et al., 2018). Associated with the Arctic Amplification, the Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly and Greenland ice sheet is melting rapidly, especially around the coastal margins (State of Climate, 2018). However, Antarctic climate change appears to be different from the Arctic. In the western part of Antarctica, surface temperature is rising rapidly with large sea and land ice melting, but in the eastern part, there is little temperature change with slight increase in sea ice extent. The contrasting east-west temperature response is illustrated by the deepening of the Amundsen Sea Low whose upstream brings warm maritime air to the Antarctic peninsula and Amundsen-Bellingshausen Seas, but downstream air provides cold air to the Ross Sea, increasing sea ice. Besides, the increase in Southern Annular Mode (SAM) phase due to stratospheric ozone reduction enhances westerly winds, pushing sea ice northward by Ekman divergence and cooling east Antarctica. In this study, we review the recent Antarctic climate change and its possible causes.