scholarly journals The relationship between the Madden-Julian Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation

2016 ◽  
Vol 143 (702) ◽  
pp. 240-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhina Jiang ◽  
Steven B. Feldstein ◽  
Sukyoung Lee
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Stinnett ◽  
Joshua Durkee ◽  
Joshua Gilliland ◽  
Victoria Murley ◽  
Alan Black ◽  
...  

<p>The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a high-frequency oscillation that has known influences on the climatology of weather patterns across the eastern United States. This study explores the relationship between the daily North Atlantic Oscillation index with observed high-wind events from 391 first-order weather stations across the eastern U.S. from 1973-2015. These events were determined following typical National Weather Service high-wind criteria: sustained winds of at least 18 m•s-1 for at least 1 hour or a wind gust of at least 26 m•s-1 for any duration. Since research literature shows high-wind events are often connected to parent mid-latitude cyclone tracks, and since the NAO has been shown to influence these storm tracks, it is hypothesized that changes in NAO phases are connected to spatial shifts and frequencies in high-wind observations. Initial results show a preferred southwesterly direction during each NAO phase. Variance in high-wind directions appears to increase (decrease) during negative (positive) NAO phases. Further, the greatest spatial difference in the mean center of high-wind observations was between positive and negative NAO phases. Overall, these preliminary findings indicate changes in high-wind observations may be linked to NAO phases.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (5) ◽  
pp. 1613-1635
Author(s):  
Sebastien Fromang ◽  
Gwendal Rivière

Abstract The aim of the paper is to investigate the influence of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) on the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) using a quasigeostrophic model on the sphere. A simplified forcing based on potential vorticity anomalies in the tropics is used to mimic the MJO. The idealized nature of our setup allows us to determine the distinct roles played by stationary and synoptic waves. This is done by means of several series of almost 10 000 short runs of 30 days. Ensemble averages and a streamfunction budget analysis are used to study the modifications of the flow induced by the MJO. We find that a stationary Rossby wave is excited in the tropics during MJO phase 3. The western part of the Pacific jet is displaced poleward, which modifies the transient eddy activity in that basin. These changes create a ridge south of Alaska, which favors equatorward propagation of synoptic waves and larger poleward eddy momentum fluxes from the eastern Pacific toward the Atlantic, increasing the frequency of occurrence of the positive NAO events. The situation is essentially reversed following phase 6 of the MJO and conducive to the negative phase of the NAO. For a realistic MJO forcing amplitude, we find increases in both NAO phases to be around 30%, in reasonable agreement with the observations given the model simplicity. Finally, we present a series of experiments to assess the relative importance of linear versus nonlinear effects.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry West ◽  
Nevil Quinn ◽  
Michael Horswell

<p>The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is one of the primary atmospheric circulations which influence weather patterns in Great Britain. Its two phases (either positive or negative depending on differences in sea level pressure) result in characteristic precipitation patterns, the effects of which cascade down to signatures in streamflow. However, in relation to streamflow response to the NAO, these studies have been spatio-temporally limited as they have been undertaken using a small number of measurement sites with relatively short records.</p><p>The release of new historic datasets from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) provides a new opportunity to undertake a broad spatio-temporal analysis of the relationship between NAO and streamflow. This research used reconstructed daily flows for 291 catchments and the associated Standardised Streamflow Index (SSI) to explore the relationship between the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI) for the period January 1900-November 2015. Spearman correlations were calculated at monthly intervals between the NAOI and SSI (with a 1-month accumulation period), and the historic flows dataset was used to explore the variability in flows across the catchments under NAO+ and NAO- phases.</p><p>This analysis revealed distinct wet and dry spatio-temporal signatures in streamflow. The winter months are characterised by a north-west and south-east divide in this relationship; catchments in the northern and western regions show strong positive correlations between the NAOI and SSI and NAO+ is associated with higher than normal flows in many north-western catchments, and vice versa under NAO-. While catchments in the south-eastern and central regions are negatively correlated and therefore show and opposite wet-dry response. However, during the summer months, while there are some wet-dry signatures under NAO positive/negative phases - the reverse to that seen in winter, almost all catchments show weak NAOI-SSI negative correlation values. </p><p>Finally, we compare the wet-dry responses to the NAO observed in streamflow to NAO-precipitation patterns, measured via correlations between the NAOI and Standardised Precipitation Index with a 1-month accumulation period over the same study period. The two sets of correlations (NAO-SPI and NAO-SSI) were analysed for spatio-temporal similarity through a Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) analysis and a space-time clustering analysis. This revealed that in winter, as described above, the correlations with SPI and SSI generally behave similarly during the winter months – i.e. the wet-dry signatures in rainfall cascade down and are identifiable in streamflow patterns. In the summer months the NAOI-SPI correlations for the majority of catchments are negative. In the NAOI-SSI correlations, the summer values, while still negative, are notably weaker. The catchments with the weakest NAOI-SSI correlations are those generally in the central/southern region. These catchments have very slow response times due to their characteristics which may moderate the NAO wet/dry rainfall deviation.</p>


Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baoqiang Tian ◽  
Ke Fan

The prediction skill of the Climate Forecast System, version 2 (CFSv2), for the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is evaluated in three winter months (December, January, and February). The results show that the CFSv2 model can skillfully predict the December NAO one month in advance. There are two main contributors to NAO predictability in December. One is the predictability of the relationship between the North Atlantic sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) tripole and the NAO and the other is the second empirical orthogonal function (EOF) mode of the geopotential height at 50 hPa (Z50-EOF2). The relationship between the NAO and SSTA tripole index in December is the most significant in the three winter months. The significant monthly differences of surface heat fluxes in December over the whole North Atlantic are favorable for promoting the interaction between the NAO and North Atlantic SSTAs, in addition to improving the predictability of the December NAO. When the NAO is in a positive phase, easterly anomalies are located at the low and high latitudes and westerly anomalies prevail in the mid-latitudes of the troposphere. The correlation between the December Z50-EOF2 and zonal-mean zonal wind anomalies shows a similar spatial structure to that for the NAO. The possible reason why the CFSv2 model can predict the December NAO one month ahead is that it can reasonably reproduce the relationship between the December NAO and both the North Atlantic SST and stratospheric circulation.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 364-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hai Lin ◽  
Gilbert Brunet ◽  
Jacques Derome

Abstract Based on the bivariate Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) index defined by Wheeler and Hendon and 25 yr (1979–2004) of pentad data, the association between the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the MJO on the intraseasonal time scale during the Northern Hemisphere winter season is analyzed. Time-lagged composites and probability analysis of the NAO index for different phases of the MJO reveal a statistically significant two-way connection between the NAO and the tropical convection of the MJO. A significant increase of the NAO amplitude happens about 5–15 days after the MJO-related convection anomaly reaches the tropical Indian Ocean and western Pacific region. The development of the NAO is associated with a Rossby wave train in the upstream Pacific and North American region. In the Atlantic and African sector, there is an extratropical influence on the tropical intraseasonal variability. Certain phases of the MJO are preceded by the occurrence of strong NAOs. A significant change of upper zonal wind in the tropical Atlantic is caused by a modulated transient westerly momentum flux convergence associated with the NAO.


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