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Abstract The observed winter Barents-Kara Sea (BKS) sea ice concentration (SIC) has shown a close association with the second empirical orthogonal function (EOF) mode of Eurasian winter surface air temperature (SAT) variability, known as Warm Arctic Cold Eurasia (WACE) pattern. However, the potential role of BKS SIC on this WACE pattern of variability and on its long-term trend remains elusive. Here, we show that from 1979 to 2022, the winter BKS SIC and WACE association is most prominent and statistically significant for the variability at the sub-decadal time scale for 5–6 years. We also show the critical role of the multi-decadal trend in the principal component of the WACE mode of variability for explaining the overall Eurasian winter temperature trend over the same period. Furthermore, a large multi-model ensemble of atmosphere-only experiments from 1979 to 2014, with and without the observed Arctic SIC forcing, suggests that the BKS SIC variations induce this observed sub-decadal variability and the multi-decadal trend in the WACE. Additionally, we analyse the model simulated first or the leading EOF mode of Eurasian winter SAT variability, which in observations, closely relates to the Arctic Oscillation (AO). We find a weaker association of this mode to AO and a statistically significant positive trend in our ensemble simulation, opposite to that found in observation. This contrasting nature reflects excessive hemispheric warming in the models, partly contributed by the modelled Arctic Sea ice loss.
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Summary Plant carbon isotope discrimination is complex, and could be driven by climate, evolution and/or edaphic factors. We tested the climate drivers of carbon isotope discrimination in modern and historical plant chemistry, and focus in particular on the relationship between rising [CO2] over Industrialization and carbon isotope discrimination.
We generated temporal records of plant carbon isotopes from museum specimens collected over a climo‐sequence to test plant responses to climate and atmospheric change over the past 200 yr (including
Pinus strobus ,Platycladus orientalis ,Populus tremuloides ,Thuja koraiensis ,Thuja occidentalis ,Thuja plicata ,Thuja standishii andThuja sutchuenensis ). We aggregated our results with a meta‐analysis of a wide range of C3plants to make a comprehensive study of the distribution of carbon isotope discrimination and values among different plant types.We show that climate variables (e.g. mean annual precipitation, temperature and, key to this study, CO2in the atmosphere) do not drive carbon isotope discrimination.
Plant isotope discrimination is intrinsic to each taxon, and could link phylogenetic relationships and adaptation to climate quantitatively and over ecological to geological time scales.