Forcing mechanism of the Silk Road pattern and the sensitivity of Rossby wave source hotspots to mean state winds

Author(s):  
Ronald Kwan Kit Li ◽  
Chi‐Yung Tam ◽  
Ngar‐Cheung Lau ◽  
Soo‐Jin Sohn ◽  
Joong‐Bae Ahn ◽  
...  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (24) ◽  
pp. 9915-9932 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Wang ◽  
Peiqiang Xu ◽  
Wen Chen ◽  
Yong Liu

Based on several reanalysis and observational datasets, this study suggests that the Silk Road pattern (SRP), a major teleconnection pattern stretching across Eurasia in the boreal summer, shows clear interdecadal variations that explain approximately 50% of its total variance. The interdecadal SRP features a strong barotropic wave train along the Asian subtropical jet, resembling its interannual counterpart. Additionally, it features a second weak wave train over the northern part of Eurasia, leading to larger meridional scale than its interannual counterpart. The interdecadal SRP contributes approximately 40% of the summer surface air temperature’s variance with little uncertainty and 10%–20% of the summer precipitation’s variance with greater uncertainty over large domains of Eurasia. The interdecadal SRP shows two regime shifts in 1972 and 1997. The latter shift explains over 40% of the observed rainfall reduction over northeastern Asia and over 40% of the observed warming over eastern Europe, western Asia, and northeastern Asia, highlighting its importance to the recent decadal climate variations over Eurasia. The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) does not show a significant linear relationship with the interdecadal SRP. However, the Monte Carlo bootstrapping resampling analysis suggests that the positive (negative) phases of the spring and summer AMO significantly facilitate the occurrence of negative (positive) phases of the interdecadal SRP, implying plausible prediction potentials for the interdecadal variations of the SRP. The reported results are insensitive to the long-term trends in datasets and thereby have little relevance to externally forced climate change.


2005 ◽  
Vol 62 (11) ◽  
pp. 4057-4070 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhuo Wang ◽  
C-P. Chang ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
Fei-Fei Jin

Abstract Rossby wave propagation theory predicts that Rossby waves in a tropical easterly flow cannot escape from the Tropics to the extratropics. Here the authors show that a southerly flow component in the basic state (a southerly conveyor) may transfer a Rossby wave source northward; thus, a forcing embedded in the deep tropical easterlies may excite a Rossby wave response in the extratropical westerlies. It is shown that the southerly conveyor determines the location of the effective Rossby wave source and that the extratropical response is relatively insensitive to the location of the tropical forcing, provided that the tropical response can reach the southerly conveyor. A stronger southerly flow favors a stronger extratropical response, and the spatial structure of the extratropical response is determined by the extratropical westerly basic flows.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Wicker ◽  
Richard Greatbatch

<p>Tropical convection drives extratropical variability on subseasonal to interannual time-scales by exciting Rossby wave trains in the upper troposphere. Traditionally the relevant Rossby wave source is considered to be the sum of vortex stretching and vorticity advection by the divergent horizontal flow ( - ∇·<strong>u</strong><sub>χ</sub> (ζ+f) - <strong>u</strong><sub>χ</sub>·∇ (ζ+f)). Since absolute vorticity is very small at the equator, the equatorward flanks of the upper tropospheric jets have been regarded the source region of Rossby wave trains. In these considerations vertical momentum advection is neglected, although, it is an important source for westerly momentum at the equator. The curl of vertical momentum advection is the sum of vertical vorticity advection and vortex tilting ( -  ω ζ<sub>p</sub> - ω<sub>x</sub> v<sub>p</sub> + ω<sub>y</sub> u<sub>p</sub>). These contributions are smaller than the traditional Rossby wave source in midlatidues by about one order of magnitude but they are of similar size in the tropics.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (22) ◽  
pp. 9567-9580
Author(s):  
Ronald Kwan Kit Li ◽  
Chi Yung Tam ◽  
Ngar Cheung Lau ◽  
Soo Jin Sohn ◽  
Joong Bae Ahn

AbstractThe Silk Road pattern (SR) is a leading mode of atmospheric circulation over midlatitude Eurasia in boreal summer. Its temporal phase is known to be unpredictable in many models. Previous studies have not reached a clear consensus on the role of sea surface temperature (SST) associated with SR. By comparing seasonal hindcasts from the Pusan National University (PNU) coupled general circulation model with reanalysis, we investigate if there are any sources of predictability originating from the SST. It was found that the PNU model cannot predict SR temporally. In fact, SR is associated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the model hindcasts, in contrast to reanalysis results in which SR is more associated with North Atlantic SST anomalies. The PNU system, however, shows potential predictability in SR associated with tropical Pacific SST. Bias in stationary Rossby waveguides is proposed as an explanation for the SR–ENSO relationship in hindcast runs. Model upper-level wind bias in the North Atlantic results in a less continuous waveguide connecting the North Atlantic to Asia, and may hinder wave propagations induced by North Atlantic SST to trigger SR. On the other hand, model upper-level wind bias in the subtropical western Pacific may favor westward propagation of zonally elongated waves from the ENSO region to trigger SR. This study implies that the role of SST with regard to SR can be substantially changed depending on the fidelity of model upper-level background winds.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (21) ◽  
pp. 7574-7589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Kosaka ◽  
J. S. Chowdary ◽  
Shang-Ping Xie ◽  
Young-Mi Min ◽  
June-Yi Lee

Predictability of summer climate anomalies over East Asia and the northwestern Pacific is investigated using observations and a multimodel hindcast ensemble initialized on 1 May for the recent 20–30 yr. Summertime East Asia is under the influence of the northwestern Pacific subtropical high (PASH). The Pacific–Japan (PJ) teleconnection pattern, a meridional dipole of sea level pressure variability, affects the northwestern PASH. The forecast models generally capture the association of the PJ pattern with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The Silk Road pattern, a wave train along the summer Asian jet, is another dominant teleconnection that influences the northwestern PASH and East Asia. In contrast to the PJ pattern, observational analysis reveals a lack of correlations between the Silk Road pattern and ENSO. Coupled models cannot predict the temporal phase of the Silk Road pattern, despite their ability to reproduce its spatial structure as the leading mode of atmospheric internal variability. Thus, the pattern is rather unpredictable at monthly to seasonal lead, limiting the seasonal predictability for summer in East Asia. The anomalous summer of 2010 in East Asia is a case in point, illustrating the interference by the Silk Road pattern. Canonical anomalies associated with a decayed El Niño and developing La Niña would have the PJ pattern bring a cold summer to East Asia in 2010. In reality, the Silk Road pattern overwhelmed this tendency, bringing a record-breaking hot summer instead. A dynamical model experiment indicates that European blocking was instrumental in triggering the Silk Road pattern in the 2010 summer.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 717-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Christine Stephan ◽  
Nicholas P. Klingaman ◽  
Andrew G. Turner

The Silk Road pattern (SRP) teleconnection manifests in summer over Eurasia, where it is associated with substantial temperature and precipitation anomalies. The SRP varies on interannual and decadal scales; reanalyses show an increase in its decadal variability around the mid-1970s. Understanding what drives this decadal variability is particularly important, because contemporary seasonal prediction models struggle to predict the phase of the SRP. Based on analysis of observations and multiple targeted numerical experiments, this study proposes a mechanism for decadal SRP variability. Causal effect network analysis confirms a positive feedback loop between the eastern portion of the SRP pattern and vertical motion over India on synoptic time scales. Anomalies over a larger region of subtropical South Asia can reinforce a background state that projects onto the positive or negative SRP through this mechanism. This effect is isolated and confirmed in targeted numerical simulations. The transition from weak to strong decadal variability in the mid-1970s is consistent with more spatially coherent interannual precipitation variability over subtropical South Asia. Furthermore, results suggest that oceanic variability does not directly force the SRP. Nevertheless, sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific may indirectly affect the SRP by modulating South Asian rainfall on decadal time scales.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (22) ◽  
pp. 7834-7851 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guosen Chen ◽  
Ronghui Huang

Abstract Using observational rainfall data and atmospheric reanalysis data, the precipitation variations in Northwest China during July and the corresponding atmospheric teleconnection patterns are studied. The results indicate that the leading modes of July precipitation variations in Northwest China are affected by the Silk Road pattern and the Europe–China (EC) pattern. The analysis suggests that the circumglobal teleconnection (CGT) could be considered as the interannual component of the Silk Road pattern. To investigate the excitation mechanisms for the CGT pattern and EC pattern on interannual time scales, the singular value decomposition (SVD) analysis is performed between 200-hPa meridional wind velocity over the region of (30°–60°N, 30°–130°E) and tropical rainfall between (15°S and 30°N). The results suggest that the tropical heating anomalies most responsible for the CGT pattern are located over the North Indian Ocean, and the tropical heating anomalies most responsible for EC pattern are located over equatorial central Pacific, Indonesia, and tropical Atlantic. The tropical heating anomalies excite the CGT pattern and EC pattern by inducing divergent flow at the upper troposphere, and the advections of vorticity by the divergent component of the flow act as effective Rossby wave sources. Further analysis indicates that the tropical rainfall anomalies responsible for the CGT pattern and EC pattern are the leading modes of tropical rainfall variations, and these modes of tropical rainfall variations are related to the SST anomalies.


2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 441-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marília Harumi Shimizu ◽  
Iracema Fonseca de Albuquerque Cavalcanti

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