Research frontiers on changes of the Arctic climate system and its global connections

The Arctic serves as an indispensable component of the Earth’s coupled climate system, and imposes multi-scale, far-reaching modulation on global climate evolution, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as global socio-economic development. Under ongoing global warming, the Arctic climate system has undergone pronounced accelerated shifts, characterized by amplified warming and wetting trends, drastic sea ice decline and increased heatwave occurrences. The Arctic climate system exerts pervasive global impacts via thermodynamic and dynamic pathways, including widespread cryospheric degradation, terrestrial climate extremes and remote teleconnections. Furthermore, accelerated Arctic climatic shifts can modulate diverse climate feedback loops, further complicating its multifaceted climatic impacts. Current frontiers in Arctic climate research include multi-source data coupling analysis, quantification of nonlinear feedbacks, Arctic-midlatitude teleconnections, and AI-assisted high-resolution Arctic climate prediction systems. To this end, we have organized a special issue addressing Arctic climate system variability and its global teleconnections, aiming to deepen insights into the system’s evolutionary processes, associated climatic impacts, and forecast skill.