Evaluation of the Arctic Atmospheric Circulation in CMIP6

The Arctic atmospheric circulation is expected to undergo changes across the 21^st Century due to the impacts of the deviations in the global climate including Arctic Amplification and reductions in Arctic sea ice. These changes in atmospheric circulation are predicted to have significant impacts in areas such as coastal erosion, Arctic shipping, and Arctic-mid-latitude connections. The changes in Arctic atmospheric circulation in a selection of CMIP6 models will be evaluated using the method of Self Organizing Maps (SOMs). The SOM technique will be used to objectively identify Arctic circulation patterns, based on sea level pressure, present in ERA5 and CMIP6 model data and to document the frequency with which each pattern occurs in these datasets. The CMIP6 data will include the historical period (1985-2014) and at least one end-of-century (2071-2100) future scenario. Each of the CMIP6 models will be compared to ERA5 to assess replicability of the frequency of each of the patterns in the SOM in the historical period. An inter-model comparison will then be presented on the predicted changes in the Arctic atmospheric circulation at the end of the 21^st century.