Bianca Mezzina

Catholic University of Louvain | UCLouvain · Earth and Life Institute

After a period of relative stability, the Antarctic sea ice extent has abruptly decreased in 2016 and has remained low since then. Both atmospheric and oceanic processes likely contributed to this drop but many questions remain regarding the underlying dynamics and it is unknown if this drop is unprecedented. Here we produce a new multi-variate spa...

Understanding the variability of Antarctic sea ice is still a challenge. After decades of modest growth, an unprecedented minimum in the sea ice extent (SIE) was registered in summer 2017, and, following years of anomalously low SIE, a new record was established in early 2022. These two memorable minima have received great attention as single cases...

The 2016 Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) drop was a rapid decrease that led to persistent low sea ice conditions. The event was triggered by atmospheric anomalies, but the potential preconditioning role of the ocean is unsettled. Here, we use sensitivity experiments with a fully-coupled regional climate model to elucidate the impact of the ocean con...

Understanding the variability of Antarctic sea ice is still a challenge. After decades of modest growth, an unprecedented minimum in the sea ice extent (SIE) was registered in summer 2017, and, following years of anomalously low SIE, a new record was established in early 2022. These two memorable minima have received great attention as single cases...

The seasonal cycle of the Antarctic sea ice extent is strongly asymmetric, with a relatively slow increase after the summer minimum followed by a more rapid decrease after the winter maximum. This cycle is intimately linked to the seasonal cycle of the insolation received at the top of the atmosphere, but sea ice processes as well as the exchanges...

The seasonal cycle of the Antarctic sea ice extent is strongly asymmetric, with a relatively slow increase after the summer minimum followed by a more rapid decrease after the winter maximum. This cycle is intimately linked to the seasonal cycle of the insolation received at the top of the atmosphere but sea ice processes as well as the exchanges w...

The late-winter signal associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over the European continent is unsettled. Two main anomalous patterns of sea-level pressure (SLP) can be identified: a “wave-like” pattern with two opposite-signed anomalies over Europe, and a pattern showing a single anomaly (“semi-isolated”). In this work, potential pa...

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is known to affect the Northern Hemisphere tropospheric circulation in late-winter (January–March), but whether El Niño and La Niña lead to symmetric impacts and with the same underlying dynamics remains unclear, particularly in the North Atlantic. Three state-of-the-art atmospheric models forced by symmetric ano...

The impact of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the late-winter extra-tropical stratosphere (January–March) is assessed in a multi-model framework. Three state-of-the-art atmospheric models are run with prescribed SST anomalies representative of a strong ENSO event, with symmetric patterns for El Niño and La Niña. The well-known temperature pe...

The winter extratropical teleconnection of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the North Atlantic–European (NAE) sector remains controversial, concerning both the amplitude of its impacts and the underlying dynamics. However, a well-established response is a late-winter (January–March) signal in sea level pressure (SLP) consisting of a dipolar p...

The impact of the wintertime El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on European late spring climate is examined using an atmospheric general circulation model of intermediate complexity. The analysis is focused on the response of the lower stratosphere/upper troposphere, downward propagation of the ENSO signal detected in temperature, zonal wind and g...