Co‐Variability of Tripolar Tibetan Plateau Snow Anomalies With Eurasian Snow and Its Impact on Wintertime Eurasian Teleconnections

Abstract Snow cover over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) exhibits pronounced spatial heterogeneity during autumn and winter. The leading empirical orthogonal function (EOF1) mode of TP snow cover extent (SCE) anomalies, characterized by a nearly uniform increase or decrease across the plateau, has been shown to induce a wintertime Pacific–North American (PNA)‐like atmospheric response. In this study, we further investigate the climatic impacts of the second EOF mode (EOF2), which features a tripolar‐like SCE pattern with positive anomalies over the northwestern and eastern TP, and negative anomalies over the central TP. Regression analyses show that this tripolar‐like TP SCE anomaly exhibits strong persistence from autumn to winter and is significantly associated with reduced snow cover over Europe and the Lake Baikal region from mid‐autumn through winter. Corresponding atmospheric responses include a wintertime Eurasian (EU)‐like wave train, surface cooling over northeast China, and warming over Siberia and the surrounding Arctic. Idealized model experiments with prescribed EOF2 SCE anomalies over the TP, Europe, and Lake Baikal reasonably reproduce the observed wintertime EU‐like teleconnection pattern. These results indicate that co‐varying snow cover anomalies over the TP, Europe, and Lake Baikal exert a notable influence on Northern Hemisphere winter atmospheric circulation, highlighting a physically grounded and previously underappreciated source of seasonal predictability.