(Bloomberg) -- Here’s a climate twist: If your winter has beenbrutally cold in Tokyo or Toledo in recent years, you can thankglobal warming in the Arctic, a new study suggests.

Rising temperatures in the waters north of Russia and Alaska arechanging atmospheric circulation patterns and may play a “centralrole” in record-breaking winters that have hit East Asia and NorthAmerica, researchers from South Korea and the U.K. wrote in a studypublished Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The study follows earlier research showing how changes in thefar north weaken wind patterns and let cold air sit over themid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The new report furtherexplores this effect, finding warmer weather in the Kara andBarents seas, north of Russia and Norway, is often followed about15 days later by severe weather in East Asia. Balmier temperaturesin the East Siberian and Chuckchi seas, above Russia and Alaska,often occur about five days before cold spells in the U.S. andCanada, the scientists said.

“There are two key Arctic regions where regional warming caninduce distinguishable cold winters over northern continents,”wrote the researchers, led by Jong-Seong Kug of Pohang Universityof Science and Technology in South Korea. The changes in Arctic airflows “produce favorable conditions for severe winters in East Asiaor North America.”

Snowfalls across Europe and Asia were the highest in decadeslast year, while frigid cold in the northeast U.S. led to naturalgas shortages and price spikes that year. This year, Boston gotburied under more than 9 feet (2.7 meters) of snow, an all-timehigh.

Tropical cyclones

The study was one of two published Monday aimed at betterpredicting the weather disasters scientists say will be morelikely, due to rising global temperatures. A report in the journalNature Climate Change said extreme tropical cyclones will becomemore frequent, bringing higher storm surges to three vulnerablecoastal areas: Tampa, Florida; Cairns, Australia; and the PersianGulf.

The research found the annual risk of a storm with a 6- meter(19.7-foot) surge, enough to inundate much of the Tampa Bay area,will be four to 14 times higher by the end of the century.

The Persian Gulf, which has never been hit by a tropicalcyclone, faces a “large” threat, according to the researchers, ledby Ning Lin of Princeton University. “Further warming of the oceanmay further increase the change of the Persian Gulf region beingstruck by an extreme storm.”

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