Extratropical cyclone variability in the Northern Hemisphere winter from the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 795-809 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. K. Gulev ◽  
O. Zolina ◽  
S. Grigoriev
2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (21) ◽  
pp. 4230-4244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund K. M. Chang

Abstract In this study, the correlation between the Northern Hemisphere winter Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks is examined using the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis and the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40), as well as unassimilated aircraft observations. By examining month-to-month variability in the 250-hPa meridional velocity variance, the correlation between the two storm track peaks is found to be as high as 0.5 during the winters between 1975/76 and 1998/99. Here, it is shown that the correlation between the two storm tracks can be clearly detected from the aircraft data. Further analyses of the reanalysis data show that the correlation can also be seen in other eddy variance and covariance statistics, including the poleward heat flux at the 700-hPa level. The correlation between the two storm tracks, as seen in both reanalysis datasets, is shown to be much weaker during the period 1957/58–1971/72, suggesting a possible regime transition from largely uncorrelated storm tracks to highly correlated storm tracks during the 1970s. However, during this earlier period, the number of aircraft observations is insufficient to verify the low correlation seen in the reanalyses. Thus, low biases in the reanalyses during the earlier period cannot be ruled out. An ensemble of four GCM simulations performed using the GFDL GCM forced by global observed SST variations between 1950 and 1995 has also been examined. The correlation between the two storm tracks in the GCM simulations is much lower (0.18) than that observed, even if the analysis is restricted to the GCM simulations from the period 1975/76–1994/95. A Monte Carlo test shows that the observed correlation and the GCM correlation are statistically distinct at the 1% level. Correlations between the Southern Hemisphere summer Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks have also been examined based on the reanalyses datasets. The results suggest that the amplitude of the SH summer Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks are not significantly correlated, showing that seeding of the Atlantic storm track by the Pacific storm track does not necessarily lead to significant correlations between the two storm tracks.


2016 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomoko ICHIMARU ◽  
Shunsuke NOGUCHI ◽  
Toshihiko HIROOKA ◽  
Hitoshi MUKOUGAWA

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 679-692 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Spang ◽  
J. J. Remedios ◽  
L. J. Kramer ◽  
L. R. Poole ◽  
M. D. Fromm ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) on ENVISAT has made extensive measurements of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) in the northern hemisphere winter 2002/2003. A PSC detection method based on a ratio of radiances (the cloud index) has been implemented for MIPAS and is validated in this study with respect to ground-based lidar and space borne occultation measurements. A very good correspondence in PSC sighting and cloud altitude between MIPAS detections and those of other instruments is found for cloud index values of less than four. Comparisons with data from the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) III are used to further show that the sensitivity of the MIPAS detection method for this threshold value of cloud index is approximately equivalent to an extinction limit of 10-3km-1 at 1022nm, a wavelength used by solar occultation experiments. The MIPAS cloud index data are subsequently used to examine, for the first time with any technique, the evolution of PSCs throughout the Arctic polar vortex up to a latitude close to 90° north on a near-daily basis. We find that the winter of 2002/2003 is characterised by three phases of very different PSC activity. First, an unusual, extremely cold phase in the first three weeks of December resulted in high PSC occurrence rates. This was followed by a second phase of only moderate PSC activity from 5-13 January, separated from the first phase by a minor warming event. Finally there was a third phase from February to the end of March where only sporadic and mostly weak PSC events took place. The composition of PSCs during the winter period has also been examined, exploiting in particular an infra-red spectral signature which is probably characteristic of NAT. The MIPAS observations show the presence of these particles on a number of occasions in December but very rarely in January. The PSC type differentiation from MIPAS indicates that future comparisons of PSC observations with microphysical and denitrification models might be revealing about aspects of solid particle existence and location.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 3255-3263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumiaki Ogawa ◽  
Noel Keenlyside ◽  
Yongqi Gao ◽  
Torben Koenigk ◽  
Shuting Yang ◽  
...  

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