Variations of Northern Hemisphere Storm Track and Extratropical Cyclone Activity Associated with the Madden–Julian Oscillation

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (13) ◽  
pp. 4799-4818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanjuan Guo ◽  
Toshiaki Shinoda ◽  
Jialin Lin ◽  
Edmund K. M. Chang
Keyword(s):  
Storm Track ◽  
Meridional Wind ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Boreal Winter ◽  
Madden Julian Oscillation ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Cyclone Activity ◽  
Intraseasonal Variations ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Cyclone Frequency

This study investigates the intraseasonal variations of the Northern Hemispheric storm track associated with the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) during the extended boreal winter (November–April) using 36 yr (1979–2014) of reanalysis data from ERA-Interim. Two methods have been used to diagnose storm-track variations. In the first method, the storm track is quantified by the temporal-filtered variance of 250-hPa meridional wind (vv250) or mean sea level pressure (pp). The intraseasonal anomalies of vv250 composited for eight MJO phases are characterized by a zonal band of strong positive (or negative) anomalies meandering from the Pacific all the way across North America and the Atlantic into northern Europe, with weaker anomalies of opposite sign at one or both flanks. The results based on pp are consistent with those based on vv250 except for larger zonal variations, which may be induced by surface topography. In the second method, an objective cyclone-tracking scheme has been used to track the extratropical cyclones that compose the storm track. The MJO-composite anomalies of the “accumulated” cyclone activity, a quantity that includes contributions from both the cyclone frequency and cyclone mean intensity, are very similar to those based on pp. Further analysis demonstrates that major contribution comes from variations in the cyclone frequency. Further analysis suggests that the intraseasonal variations of the storm track can be primarily attributed to the variations of the mean flow that responds to the anomalous MJO convections in the tropics, with possible contribution also from the moisture variations.

scholarly journals Using Mean Flow Change as a Proxy to Infer Interdecadal Storm Track Variability

2003 ◽  
Vol 16 (13) ◽  
pp. 2178-2196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund K. M. Chang ◽  
Yunfei Fu
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Secular Trend ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Sea Level Pressure ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Storm Track Activity ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Rawinsonde Data

Abstract Several recent studies, based mainly on analyses of reanalysis data, have suggested that the Northern Hemisphere storm tracks have intensified during the second half of the twentieth century. However, comparisons with rawinsonde observations over land areas suggest that eddy variance/covariance statistics may contain spurious jumps that had led to an exaggeration of the storm track secular trend. In this study, storm track variations are inferred from mean flow anomalies using canonical correlation analysis (CCA). A CCA model relating storm track anomalies to mean flow anomalies is derived using recent, more reliable data. The model is then applied to infer storm track anamalies using mean flow anomalies for earlier periods, when storm track analyses are deemed more suspect (or even nonexistent). Results of the CCA analyses suggest that the strong secular trend observed over the Atlantic basin and Europe is consistent with mean flow anomalies, while CCA predictions based on mean flow changes suggest only a much weaker trend in the Pacific storm track activity than that present in the reanalysis data. Over the regions where comparisons with rawinsonde data can be made, the interdecadal trends inferred by the CCA model are quite consistent with rawinsonde data over the Pacific storm track entrance and exit regions, as well as the Atlantic storm track exit regions, but are inconsistent with rawinsonde observations and reanalysis data over northeastern North America, where CCA predictions are generally poor. A CCA hindcast based on Trenberth and Paolino mean sea level pressure data as a predictor shows no indication that the secular increase in storm track intensity extends further back prior to 1960, suggesting that during the entire twentieth century, storm track activity was weakest during the 1960s.

scholarly journals Diversity of the Global Teleconnections Associated with the Madden–Julian Oscillation

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 397-414
Author(s):  
Guosen Chen
Keyword(s):  
Rossby Wave ◽  
Potential Vorticity ◽  
Wave Train ◽  
Boreal Winter ◽  
Madden Julian Oscillation ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Weather And Climate ◽  
Baroclinic Model ◽  
Rossby Wave Train ◽  
Upper Level

AbstractA recent study has revealed that the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) during boreal winter exhibits diverse propagation patterns that consist of four archetypes: standing MJO, jumping MJO, slow eastward propagating MJO, and fast eastward propagating MJO. This study has explored the diversity of teleconnection associated with these four MJO groups. The results reveal that each MJO group corresponds to distinct global teleconnections, manifested as diverse upper-tropospheric Rossby wave train patterns. Overall, the teleconnections in the fast and slow MJO are similar to those in the canonical MJO constructed by the real-time multivariate MJO (RMM) indices, while the teleconnections in the jumping and standing MJO generally lose similarities to those in the canonical MJO. The causes of this diversity are investigated using a linearized potential vorticity equation. The various MJO tropical heating patterns in different MJO groups are the main cause of the diverse MJO teleconnections, as they induce assorted upper-level divergent flows that act as Rossby-wave sources through advecting the background potential vorticity. The variation of the Asian jet could affect the teleconnections over the Pacific jet exit region, but it plays an insignificant role in causing the diversity of global teleconnections. The numerical investigation with a linear baroclinic model shows that the teleconnections can be interpreted as linear responses to the MJO’s diabatic heating to various degrees for different MJO groups, with the fast and slow MJO having higher linear skill than the jumping and standing MJO. The results have broad implications in the MJO’s tropical–extratropical interactions and the associated impacts on global weather and climate.

Observed Patterns of Month-to-Month Storm-Track Variability and Their Relationship to the Background Flow*

2010 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 1420-1437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin J. Wettstein ◽  
John M. Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
Geopotential Height ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Meridional Wind ◽  
Storm Tracks ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Annular Mode ◽  
The North ◽  
Jet Variability ◽  
The North Atlantic Oscillation

Abstract Month-to-month storm-track variability is investigated via EOF analyses performed on ERA-40 monthly-averaged high-pass filtered daily 850-hPa meridional heat flux and the variances of 300-hPa meridional wind and 500-hPa height. The analysis is performed both in hemispheric and sectoral domains of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Patterns characterized as “pulsing” and “latitudinal shifting” of the climatological-mean storm tracks emerge as the leading sectoral patterns of variability. Based on the analysis presented, storm-track variability on the spatial scale of the two Northern Hemisphere sectors appears to be largely, but perhaps not completely, independent. Pulsing and latitudinally shifting storm tracks are accompanied by zonal wind anomalies consistent with eddy-forced accelerations and geopotential height anomalies that project strongly on the dominant patterns of geopotential height variability. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)–Northern Hemisphere annular mode (NAM) is associated with a pulsing of the Atlantic storm track and a meridional displacement of the upper-tropospheric jet exit region, whereas the eastern Atlantic (EA) pattern is associated with a latitudinally shifting storm track and an extension or retraction of the upper-tropospheric jet. Analogous patterns of storm-track and upper-tropospheric jet variability are associated with the western Pacific (WP) and Pacific–North America (PNA) patterns. Wave–mean flow relationships shown here are more clearly defined than in previous studies and are shown to extend through the depth of the troposphere. The Southern Hemisphere annular mode (SAM) is associated with a latitudinally shifting storm track over the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans and a pulsing South Pacific storm track. The patterns of storm-track variability are shown to be related to simple distortions of the climatological-mean upper-tropospheric jet.

The quantification of development processes of explosive cyclones over Northwestern Pacific and Atlantic in boreal winter

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joonsuk Kang ◽  
Seok-Woo Son
Keyword(s):  
Potential Vorticity ◽  
Geopotential Height ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Northwestern Pacific ◽  
Boreal Winter ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Explosive Cyclones ◽  
Development Processes ◽  
Zonal Advection ◽  
Negative Factors

<p>A method utilizing a prognostic potential vorticity (PV) inversion is designed and applied to quantify the processes that contribute to the explosive cyclone (EC) development over Northwestern Pacific and Atlantic in boreal winter. The ECs deepening in the two remarked regions are identified and tracked, by using the automated tracking method on ERA-Interim reanalysis data over the period of 1979–2017. The quantification process first involves time differentiation of linearized potential vorticity (PV), which results in a linear function of geopotential height tendency. It is then equated with the PV tendency equation that consists of mean and transient advection terms to represent dynamical processes that contribute to EC development. The quantification, finally, is performed through the inversion of PV tendency budgets, which yields corresponding geopotential height tendency. The results indicate that EC development is primarily caused by zonal advection of PV anomalies by mean flow (~65%) and diabatic production of PV (~40%), with some negative factors in both regions. The former contributes more for ECs deepening over Northwestern Atlantic (~71%) than Northwestern Pacific (~60%), whereas the latter contributes to a similar extent.</p>

scholarly journals Dynamics of Synoptic Eddy and Low-Frequency Flow Interaction. Part II: A Theory for Low-Frequency Modes

2006 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 1695-1708 ◽  
Author(s):  
F-F. Jin ◽  
L-L. Pan ◽  
M. Watanabe
Keyword(s):  
Storm Track ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Prototype Model ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Zonal Scale ◽  
Synoptic Eddy ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Storm Track Activity ◽  
Recurrent Patterns ◽  
The Antarctic

Abstract Amidst stormy atmospheric circulation, there are prominent recurrent patterns of variability in the planetary circulation, such as the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO), Arctic Oscillation (AO) or North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Pacific–North America (PNA) pattern. The role of the synoptic eddy and low-frequency flow (SELF) feedback in the formation of these dominant low-frequency modes is investigated in this paper using the linear barotropic model with the SELF feedback proposed in Part I. It is found that the AO-like and AAO-like leading singular modes of the linear dynamical system emerge from the stormy background flow as the result of a positive SELF feedback. This SELF feedback also prefers a PNA-like singular vector as well among other modes under the climatological conditions of northern winters. A model with idealized conditions of basic mean flow and activity of synoptic eddy flow and a prototype model are also used to illustrate that there is a natural scale selection for the AAO- and AO-like modes through the positive SELF feedback. The zonal scale of the localized features in the Atlantic (southern Indian Ocean) for AO (AAO) is largely related to the zonal extent of the enhanced storm track activity in the region. The meridional dipole structures of AO- and AAO-like low-frequency modes are favored because of the scale-selective positive SELF feedback, which can be heuristically understood by the tilted-trough mechanism.

scholarly journals The Annual Cycle of Northern Hemisphere Storm Tracks. Part I: Seasons

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 1743-1760 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. Hoskins ◽  
K. I. Hodges
Keyword(s):  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
Annual Cycle ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Lower Troposphere ◽  
Meridional Wind ◽  
Diagnostic Techniques ◽  
Storm Tracks ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Close Relationship

Abstract In this paper and Part II a comprehensive picture of the annual cycle of the Northern Hemisphere storm tracks is presented and discussed for the first time. It is based on both feature tracking and Eulerian-based diagnostics, applied to vorticity and meridional wind in the upper and lower troposphere. Here, the storm tracks, as diagnosed using both variables and both diagnostic techniques, are presented for the four seasons for each of the two levels. The oceanic storm tracks retain much of their winter mean intensity in spring with only a small change in their latitude. In the summer they are much weaker, particularly in the Pacific and are generally farther poleward. In autumn the intensities are larger again, comparable with those in spring, but the latitude is still nearer to that of summer. However, in the lower troposphere in the eastern ocean basins the tracking metrics show northern and southern tracks that change little with latitude through the year. The Pacific midwinter minimum is seen in upper-troposphere standard deviation diagnostics, but a richer picture is obtained using tracking. In winter there are high intensities over a wide range of latitudes in the central and eastern Pacific, and the western Pacific has high track density but weak intensity. In the lower troposphere all the diagnostics show that the strength of the Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks are generally quite uniform over the autumn–winter–spring period. There is a close relationship between the upper-tropospheric storm track, particularly that based on vorticity, and tropopause-level winds and temperature gradients. In the lower troposphere, in winter the oceanic storm tracks are in the region of the strong meridional SST gradients, but in summer they are located in regions of small or even reversed SST gradients. However, over North America the lower-tropospheric baroclinicity and the upstream portion of the Atlantic storm track stay together throughout the year.

Intraseasonal Modulation of the North Pacific Storm Track by Tropical Convection in Boreal Winter

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 1122-1137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Deng ◽  
Tianyu Jiang
Keyword(s):  
North Pacific ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Tropical Convection ◽  
Boreal Winter ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Central Pacific ◽  
Synoptic Eddy ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Pacific ◽  
North Pacific Storm Track

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.

scholarly journals Tropical and Extratropical Responses of the North Atlantic Atmospheric Circulation to a Sustained Weakening of the MOC

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 3146-3155 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Brayshaw ◽  
Tim Woollings ◽  
Michael Vellinga
Keyword(s):  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Meridional Overturning Circulation ◽  
Boreal Winter ◽  
Mean Flow ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Atlantic

Abstract The tropospheric response to a forced shutdown of the North Atlantic Ocean’s meridional overturning circulation (MOC) is investigated in a coupled ocean–atmosphere GCM [the third climate configuration of the Met Office Unified Model (HadCM3)]. The strength of the boreal winter North Atlantic storm track is significantly increased and penetrates much farther into western Europe. The changes in the storm track are shown to be consistent with the changes in near-surface baroclinicity, which can be linked to changes in surface temperature gradients near regions of sea ice formation and in the open ocean. Changes in the SST of the tropical Atlantic are linked to a strengthening of the subtropical jet to the north, which, combined with the enhanced storm track, leads to a pronounced split in the jet structure over Europe. EOF analysis and stationary box indices methods are used to analyze changes to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). There is no consistent signal of a change in the variability of the NAO, and while the changes in the mean flow project onto the positive NAO phase, they are significantly different from it. However, there is a clear eastward shift of the NAO pattern in the shutdown run, and this potentially has implications for ocean circulation and for the interpretation of proxy paleoclimate records.

scholarly journals Are the Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks Significantly Correlated?

2004 ◽  
Vol 17 (21) ◽  
pp. 4230-4244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund K. M. Chang
Keyword(s):  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
Storm Track ◽  
Reanalysis Data ◽  
Storm Tracks ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Aircraft Observations ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Hemisphere Winter ◽  
Aircraft Data ◽  
Northern Hemisphere Winter

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.

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