This study discusses experiments that include a Ural blocking anomaly in the first two weeks of November, imposed through regional nudging of the lower troposphere in two high-top atmospheric models. Two large ensembles of simulation are run, with two different sea ice conditions (high and low sea ice) in the Barents-Kara (BK) sea from October to December. Simulations with sea ice anomalies alone are also performed. We discuss the combined and respective influence of Ural blocking and BK sea ice anomalies on the polar stratosphere variability in early winter, and the associated climate impacts in the troposphere and at the surface. We find little impact of BK sea ice on the persistence of the imposed Ural blocking anomaly once the nudging constraint is released. The Ural blocking anomaly induces a weakening of the polar vortex in late November and December in the two models, but no significant impact of BK sea ice anomalies is found. We also discuss the Barents-Kara sea ice loss PAMIP runs to examine how they compare with our results.