The Barents Oscillation is a wintertime atmospheric mode in the Northern Hemisphere that has implications for the Arctic climate. This page contains information about the Barents Oscillation, including its spatial pattern and the Barents Oscillation index. The data are from the study by
Chen et al. (2013) [
PDF] and are available for download below.
Spatial pattern
Chen et al. (2013) define the Barents Oscillation (BO) as the second leading mode of Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis of monthly sea level pressure anomalies for the winter months December through March (DJFM), in the region bounded by 90°W – 90°E longitude and northward of 30°N latitude.
The BO has a primary center of action over the Barents Region, another action center over the North Atlantic Ocean, and a center of opposite sign over Greenland and the Greenland Sea. This mode of atmospheric variability is related to meridional flow over the Nordic Seas and westerly wind anomalies into the Barents Sea. In the study by Chen et al. (2013), the BO was found to be well related to the wintertime surface air temperature anomalies over the Barents Sea.
The spatial pattern and BO index on this page are derived from sea level pressure from the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 1 dataset on a 2.5° × 2.5° latitude-longitude grid.
Barents Oscillation index
The Barents Oscillation index is found by projecting monthly sea level pressure anomalies in the region 30°N – 90°N latitude and 90°W – 90°E longitude onto
the spatial pattern of the BO. The values of the index from 1948 to 2013 are shown in the interactive graph below.
194819491950195119521953195419551956195719581959196019611962196319641965196619671968196919701971197219731974197519761977197819791980198119821983198419851986198719881989199019911992199319941995199619971998199920002001200220032004200520062007200820092010201120122013-3-2-10123
The BO index can also be downloaded as an image or as a tab delimited text file:
Download data
Data and figures from the study by Chen et al. (2013) can be downloaded below for scientific use. We would be happy to hear from you if you are interested in using the data. Just send an email to
hans.chen@psu.edu and tell us about your work.
| Description | File size | Downloads |
|---|
| All data and figures | 247.2 KB | Download |
| Figures | 231.3 KB | Download |
| Barents Oscillation index in text format | 4.5 KB | Download |
| Lamb classification over the Barents Sea | 14.0 KB | Download |
Citation: Chen, H. W., Q. Zhang, H. Körnich, and D. Chen, 2013: A robust mode of climate variability in the Arctic: The Barents Oscillation.
Geophysical Research Letters,
40, 2856-2861, 10.1002/grl.50551.
The data are stored in tab delimited ASCII text files with CRLF line endings. More information about the Lamb classification can be found in
Chen (2000).
Graphical format (PNG)
Text format (TSV)