Researchers at AER are involved in studying large-scale climate dynamics on seasonal to interannual time scales and in the application of this research for climate prediction. Early work has focused on the influence of continental snow cover variability on the climate both locally and remotely. Our scientists have demonstrated, through observational analysis and numerical experiments, that a robust relationship exists between leading snow cover and the dominant mode of Northern Hemisphere winter climate variability, most commonly known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) or Arctic Oscillation (AO). What makes the snow-AO/NAO connection especially intriguing is that the AO/NAO is the single most highly correlated atmospheric index with winter surface temperatures across the North Hemisphere. For this reason, successful prediction of the AO/NAO is considered the most important anticipated achievement in climate prediction.
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