The Arctic climate paradox: The recent decrease of the Arctic Oscillation

A current paradox is that many physical and biological indicators of Arctic change—summer sea‐ice extent, spring surface air temperature and cloud cover, and shifts in vegetation and other ecosystems—show nearly linear trends over the previous two and a half decades, while the Arctic Oscillation, a representative atmospheric circulation index often associated with Arctic change, has had a different, more episodic behavior, with a near‐neutral or...