scholarly journals Atmospheric Responses to North Atlantic SST Anomalies in Idealized Experiments. Part II: North American Precipitation

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 659-671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qi Hu ◽  
Michael C. Veres

Abstract This is the second part of a two-part paper that addresses deterministic roles of the sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies associated with the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) in variations of atmospheric circulation and precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere, using a sequence of idealized model runs at the spring equinox conditions. This part focuses on the effect of the SST anomalies on North American precipitation. Major results show that, in the model setting closest to the real-world situation, a warm SST anomaly in the North Atlantic Ocean causes suppressed precipitation in central, western, and northern North America but more precipitation in the southeast. A nearly reversed pattern of precipitation anomalies develops in response to the cold SST anomaly. Further examinations of these solutions reveal that the response to the cold SST anomaly is less stable than that to the warm SST anomaly. The former is “dynamically charged” in the sense that positive eddy kinetic energy (EKE) exists over the continent. The lack of precipitation in its southeast is because of an insufficient moisture supply. In addition, the results show that the EKE of the short- (2–6 day) and medium-range (7–10 day) weather-producing processes in North America have nearly opposite signs in response to the same cold SST anomaly. These competing effects of eddies in the dynamically charged environment (elevated sensitivity to moisture) complicate the circulation and precipitation responses to the cold SST anomaly in the North Atlantic and may explain why the model results show more varying precipitation anomalies (also confirmed by statistical test results) during the cold than the warm SST anomaly, as also shown in simulations with more realistic models. Results of this study indicate a need to include the AMO in the right context with other forcings in an effort to improve understanding of interannual-to-multidecadal variations in warm season precipitation in North America.

1988 ◽  
Vol 120 (S144) ◽  
pp. 13-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
William L. Peters

AbstractThe complex origins of the North American Ephemeroptera fauna extended from the Lower Permian to the Recent. This paper discusses origins of North American genera of the cosmopolitan family Leptophlebiidae with a few examples from other mayfly families. The two extant subfamilies, Leptophlebiinae and Atalophlebiinae, probably evolved at least by the mid-Cretaceous, or about 100 million years before present. The primitive Leptophlebiinae are distributed throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere and the ancestors of the Leptophlebia–Paraleptophlebia complex within this subfamily dispersed widely by the North Atlantic route as early as the mid-Cretaceous and later probably by northern trans-Pacific dispersals through Beringia. The ancestors of Habrophlebia dispersed through the North Atlantic route at an early time, but the vicariant distribution of Habrophlebiodes in several areas of the Oriental Region and eastern North America correlates with the Arcto-Tertiary forest that covered most of the Northern Hemisphere including Beringia from the Early Tertiary into the Pleistocene. Within the nearly cosmopolitan Atalophlebiinae, Traverella is austral in origin and probably dispersed north through the Mexican Transition Zone during the mid-Tertiary as an ancient dispersal and then dispersed to its northern and eastern limits following the last Pleistocene deglaciation by way of the Missouri River tributaries. Thraulodes and Farrodes are both austral in origin and probably dispersed north through the Mexican Transition Zone during the Early Pleistocene as a relatively recent dispersal. The origins of Choroterpes sensu stricto and Neochoroterpes in North America are unknown. The mayfly fauna of the West Indies is Neotropical in origins, and no affinities between the West Indies and North America through Florida have ever been confirmed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (19) ◽  
pp. 6594-6609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Zhao ◽  
Song Yang ◽  
Renguang Wu ◽  
Zhiping Wen ◽  
Junming Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract The authors have identified an interannual relationship between Asian tropospheric temperature and the North Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) during summer (May–September) and discussed the associated features of atmospheric circulation over the Atlantic–Eurasian region. When tropospheric temperature is high (low) over Asia, positive (negative) SST anomalies appear in the extratropical North Atlantic. This relationship is well supported by the changes in background atmospheric circulation and ocean–atmosphere–land thermodynamic processes. When heat transfer from the land surface to the atmosphere over Asia strengthens, local tropospheric temperature increases and positive temperature anomalies propagate westward from Asia to the North Atlantic, leading to an increase in summer tropospheric temperature over the Atlantic–Eurasian region. Accordingly, a deep anomalous ridge occurs over the extratropical North Atlantic Ocean, with low-level southerly anomalies over the western portion of the ocean. Sensitivity experiments with climate models show that the interannual variations of the North Atlantic–Eurasian atmospheric circulation may not be forced by the extratropical Atlantic SST. Instead, experiments with changing Asian land surface heating capture the above observed features of atmospheric circulation anomalies, westward propagation of tropospheric anomalies, and Atlantic SST anomalies. The consistency between the observational and model results indicates a possible impact of Asian land heating on the development of atmospheric circulation and SST anomalies over the Atlantic–Eurasian region.


2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 576-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Ferreira ◽  
Claude Frankignoul

Abstract The transient atmospheric response to interactive SST anomalies in the midlatitudes is investigated using a three-layer QG model coupled in perpetual winter conditions to a slab oceanic mixed layer in the North Atlantic. The SST anomalies are diagnosed from a coupled run and prescribed as initial conditions, but are free to evolve. The initial evolution of the atmospheric response is similar to that obtained with a prescribed SST anomaly, starting as a quasi-linear baroclinic and then quickly evolving into a growing equivalent barotropic one. Because of the heat flux damping, the SST anomaly amplitude slowly decreases, albeit with little change in pattern. Correspondingly, the atmospheric response only increases until it reaches a maximum amplitude after about 1–3.5 months, depending on the SST anomaly considered. The response is similar to that at equilibrium in the fixed SST case, but it is 1.5–2 times smaller, and then slowly decays away.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (17) ◽  
pp. 7255-7274
Author(s):  
Shangfeng Chen ◽  
Renguang Wu ◽  
Wen Chen ◽  
Kai Li

AbstractThis study reveals a pronounced out-of-phase relationship between surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies over northeast Eurasia in boreal winter and the following summer during 1980–2017. A colder (warmer) winter over northeast Eurasia tends to be followed by a warmer (cooler) summer of next year. The processes for the out-of-phase relation of winter and summer SAT involve the Arctic Oscillation (AO), the air–sea interaction in the North Atlantic Ocean, and a Eurasian anomalous atmospheric circulation pattern induced by the North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. Winter negative AO/North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)-like atmospheric circulation anomalies lead to continental cooling over Eurasia via anomalous advection and a tripolar SST anomaly pattern in the North Atlantic. The North Atlantic SST anomaly pattern switches to a dipolar pattern in the following summer via air–sea interaction processes and associated surface heat flux changes. The summer North Atlantic dipolar SST anomaly pattern induces a downstream atmospheric wave train, including large-scale positive geopotential height anomalies over northeast Eurasia, which contributes to positive SAT anomalies there via enhancement of downward surface shortwave radiation and anomalous advection. Barotropic model experiments verify the role of the summer North Atlantic SST anomalies in triggering the atmospheric wave train over Eurasia. Through the above processes, a colder winter is followed by a warmer summer over northeast Eurasia. The above processes apply to the years when warmer winters are followed by cooler summers except for opposite signs of SAT, atmospheric circulation, and SST anomalies.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Hubbard

A relatively small, contentious, and long-forgotten meeting, the 1947 Symposium on Fish Populations, had enormous and decades-long repercussions for global fisheries policies. Convened in Toronto by Archibald Gowanlock Huntsman, former director of the Atlantic Biological Station, it drew together leading North American fisheries biologists and professional fishermen. By exposing the lack of agreement on, or understanding of, the nature of overfishing, this meeting made it difficult for later scientists to challenge pro-industry fisheries policies. The published proceedings, in-demand by a tight network of fisheries scientists across North America and the North Atlantic, guaranteed this meeting’s disproportionate and unfortunate impact.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (16) ◽  
pp. 7101-7123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Binhe Luo ◽  
Dehai Luo ◽  
Aiguo Dai ◽  
I. Simmonds ◽  
Lixin Wu

AbstractWinter surface air temperature (SAT) over North America exhibits pronounced variability on subseasonal, interannual, decadal, and interdecadal time scales. Here, reanalysis data from 1950–2017 are analyzed to investigate the atmospheric and surface ocean conditions associated with its subseasonal to interannual variability. Detrended daily SAT data reveal a known warm west/cold east (WWCE) dipole over midlatitude North America and a cold north/warm south (CNWS) dipole over eastern North America. It is found that while the North Pacific blocking (PB) is important for the WWCE and CNWS dipoles, they also depend on the phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). When a negative-phase NAO (NAO−) coincides with PB, the WWCE dipole is enhanced (compared with the PB alone case) and it also leads to a warm north/cold south dipole anomaly in eastern North America; but when PB occurs with a positive-phase NAO (NAO+), the WWCE dipole weakens and the CNWS dipole is enhanced. The PB events concurrent with the NAO− (NAO+) and SAT WWCE (CNWS) dipole are favored by the Pacific El Niño–like (La Niña–like) sea surface temperature mode and the positive (negative) North Pacific mode. The PB-NAO+ has a larger component projecting onto the SAT WWCE dipole during the La Niña winter than during the El Niño winter because a more zonal wave train is formed. Strong North American SAT WWCE dipoles and enhanced projections of PB-NAO+ events onto the SAT WWCE dipole component are also readily seen for the positive North Pacific mode. The North Pacific mode seems to play a bigger role in the North American SAT variability than ENSO.


1984 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 887-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Williams

The Caledonian–Appalachian Orogen was formed by the closing of a Paleozoic Iapetus Ocean. The continental margins of Iapetus are identified in the deformed early Paleozoic miogeoclines of the Caledonian–Appalachian Orogen. Ophiolitic vestiges of Iapetus, its oceanic plateaus, microcontinents, and volcanic arcs are Caledonian–Appalachian suspect terranes. These were assembled in interior parts of the orogen and locally they were emplaced structurally upon the adjacent miogeoclines.The modern North Atlantic Ocean opened along an axis that traversed the Paleozoic orogen longitudinally. Its opening dispersed the elements of the Paleozoic orogen and led to the present arrangement of disjunct Paleozoic miogeoclines and suspect terranes throughout the North Atlantic borderlands.The western or North American margin of Iapetus is represented by the miogeoclines along the west flank of the North American Appalachians and Caledonides of east Greenland. A small North American miogeoclinal segment occurs in the British Isles, and suspect terranes with North American faunal affinities occur in Scandinavia. The eastern margin of Iapetus is represented by the miogeoclines of the Scandinavian Caledonides and the Mauritanides of northwest Africa. Ophiolitic vestiges of Iapetus and suspect terranes occur in the Appalachians, the Caledonides of Scandinavia and the British Isles, and the Variscan foldbelt of Morocco, Iberian Peninsula, and western France.In the scenario of a closing Iapetus and opening North Atlantic, the Paleozoic margin of eastern North America expanded by the acquisition of Appalachian suspect terranes, the Paleozoic margins of Greenland and Scandinavia remained essentially unchanged, and Africa lost parts of its Paleozoic margin.Modern continental margins and the geometry of the North Atlantic mimic Paleozoic miogeoclines and the geometry of Iapetus. The Paleozoic miogeoclines, in turn, follow Grenvillian deformed zones of the Precambrian North Atlantic craton. Thus, patterns for the opening of the North Atlantic may have been set by the geometry of the Grenvillian deformed zones.


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