The Linkage between Midwinter Suppression of the North Pacific Storm Track and Atmospheric Circulation Features in the Northern Hemisphere

Author(s):  
Minghao Yang ◽  
Chongyin Li ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Xiong Chen ◽  
Lifeng Li
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan-Bing Zhao

<p>Using a recently developed methodology, namely, the multiscale window transform (MWT), and the MWT-based theory of canonical transfer and localized multiscale energetics analysis, we investigate in an eddy-following way the nonlinear eddy-background flow interaction in the North Pacific storm track, based on the ERA40 reanalysis data from ECWMF. It is found that more than 50% of the storms occur on the northern flank of the jet stream, about 40% are around the jet center, and very few (less than 5%) happen on the southern flank. For storms near or to the north of the jet center, their interaction with the background flow is asymmetric in latitude. In higher latitudes, strong downscale canonical available potential energy transfer happens, especially in the middle troposphere, which reduces the background baroclinicity and decelerates the jet; in lower latitudes, upscale canonical kinetic energy transfer intensifies at the jet center, accelerating the jet and enhancing the middle-level baroclinicity. The resultant effect is that the jet strengthens but narrows, leading to an anomalous dipolar pattern in the fields of background wind and baroclinicity. For the storms on the southern side of the jet, the baroclinic canonical transfer is rather weak. On average, the local interaction begins from about 3 days before a storm arrives at the site of observation, achieves its maximum as the storm arrives, and then weakens.</p>


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (14) ◽  
pp. 4993-5010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Li ◽  
Ngar-Cheung Lau

Abstract The spatiotemporal evolution of various meteorological phenomena associated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the North Pacific–North American–North Atlantic sector is examined using both NCEP–NCAR reanalyses and output from a 2000-yr integration of a global coupled climate model. Particular attention is devoted to the implications of downstream eddy developments on the relationship between ENSO and the atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic. The El Niño–related persistent events are characterized by a strengthened Pacific subtropical jet stream and an equatorward-shifted storm track over the North Pacific. The wave packets that populate the storm tracks travel eastward through downstream development. The barotropic forcing of the embedded synoptic-scale eddies is conducive to the formation of a flow that resembles the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The more frequent and higher persistence of those episodes during El Niño winters contribute to the prevalence of negative NAO conditions. The above processes are further delineated by conducting a case study for the 2009/10 winter season, in which both El Niño and negative NAO conditions prevailed. It is illustrated that the frequent and intense surface cyclone development over North America and the western Atlantic throughout that winter are associated with upper-level troughs propagating across North America, which in turn are linked to downstream evolution of wave packets originating from the Pacific storm track.


2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (19) ◽  
pp. 5187-5191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund K. M. Chang ◽  
Yanjuan Guo

In a recent paper, Penny et al. employed feature tracking to investigate why there is a relative minimum in storminess during winter within the Pacific storm track. They concluded that reduced upstream seeding, especially seeding from northern Asia, is the main “source” of the midwinter suppression of the Pacific storm track. Results presented here show that during midwinter months when upstream seeding is as strong as that in spring/fall, the Pacific storm track is not significantly stronger than average and is still much weaker than that in spring/fall, suggesting that the strength of upstream seeding cannot be the primary cause of the midwinter suppression of Pacific storm-track activity.


2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 1122-1137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Deng ◽  
Tianyu Jiang

Abstract The modulation of the North Pacific storm track by tropical convection on intraseasonal time scales (30–90 days) in boreal winter (December–March) is investigated using the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis and NOAA satellite outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) data. Multivariate empirical orthogonal function (MEOF) analysis and case compositing based upon the principal components (PCs) of the EOFs reveal substantial changes in the structure and intensity of the Pacific storm track quantified by vertically (925–200 mb) averaged synoptic eddy kinetic energy (SEKE) during the course of a typical Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) event. The storm-track response is characterized by an amplitude-varying dipole propagating northeastward as the center of the anomalous tropical convection moves eastward across the eastern Indian Ocean and the western-central Pacific. A diagnosis of the SEKE budget indicates that the storm-track anomaly is induced primarily by changes in the convergence of energy flux, baroclinic conversion, and energy generation due to the interaction between synoptic eddies and intraseasonal flow anomalies. This demonstrates the important roles played by eddy–mean flow interaction and eddy–eddy interaction in the development of the extratropical response to MJO variability. The feedback of synoptic eddy to intraseasonal flow anomalies is pronounced: when the center of the enhanced tropical convection is located over the Maritime Continent (western Pacific), the anomalous synoptic eddy forcing partly drives an upper-tropospheric anticyclonic (cyclonic) and, to its south, a cyclonic (anticyclonic) circulation anomaly over the North Pacific. Associated with the storm-track anomaly, a three-band (dry–wet–dry) anomaly in both precipitable water and surface precipitation propagates poleward over the eastern North Pacific and induces intraseasonal variations in the winter hydroclimate over western North America.


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