A new climatology of polar lows over the Nordic and Barents seas for 14 seasons (1995/1996-2008/2009) is presented. For the first time in climatological studies of polar lows an approach based on satellite passive microwave data was adopted for polar low identification. A total of 637 polar lows were found in 14 extended winter seasons by combining total atmospheric water vapor content and sea surface wind speed fields retrieved from Special Sensor Microwave/Imager data. As derived, the polar low activity in the Norwegian and Barents Seas is found to be almost equal, and the main polar low genesis area is located northeastward of the North Cape. For the Barents Sea, a significant correlation is found between the number of polar lows and mean sea ice extent. Individual indicative polar low characteristics (i.e., diameter, lifetime, distance traveled, translation speed, and maximum wind speed) are also presented.
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