scholarly journals Eurasian Cooling Linked with Arctic Warming: Insights from PV Dynamics

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 2627-2644
Author(s):  
Yongkun Xie ◽  
Guoxiong Wu ◽  
Yimin Liu ◽  
Jianping Huang

AbstractThe three-dimensional connections between Eurasian cooling and Arctic warming since 1979 were investigated using potential vorticity (PV) dynamics. We found that Eurasian cooling can be regulated by Arctic warming through PV adaptation and PV advection. Here, PV adaptation refers to the adaptation of PV to forcing and coherent dynamic–thermodynamic adaptation to PV change. In a PV perspective, first, the anticyclonic circulation change over the Arctic is produced by a negative PV change through PV adaptation, in which the change means the linear trend from 1979 to 2017. The negative PV change is directly regulated by Arctic warming because the vertical structure of Arctic warming is stronger at lower levels, which generates a negative PV change through the diabatic heating effect. Second, the circulation change produces a change in horizontal PV advection due to the existence of climatological PV gradients. Thus, as a balanced result, both the circulation change and PV change extend to the midlatitudes through horizontal PV advection and PV adaptation. Eventually, Eurasian cooling at the surface and in the lower troposphere is dominated by PV changes at the surface through PV adaptation. Meanwhile, enhanced Eurasian cooling in the middle troposphere is dominated by top-down influences of upper-level PV change through PV adaptation. Nevertheless, the upper-level PV changes are still contributed to by horizontal PV advection associated with Arctic warming. Overall, the general dynamics connecting Eurasian cooling with Arctic warming are demonstrated in a PV view.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongkun Xie ◽  
Guoxiong Wu ◽  
Yimin Liu

<p>The three-dimensional connections between Eurasian cooling and Arctic warming since 1979 were investigated using potential vorticity (PV) dynamics. We found that Eurasian cooling can be regulated by Arctic warming through PV adaptation and PV advection. Here, PV adaptation refers to the adaptation of PV to forcing and coherent dynamic/thermodynamic adaptation to PV change. In a PV perspective, first, the anticyclonic circulation change over the Arctic is produced by a negative PV change through PV adaptation, in which the change means the linear trend from 1979~2017. The negative PV change is directly regulated by Arctic warming because the vertical structure of Arctic warming is stronger at lower levels, which generates a negative PV change through the diabatic heating effect. Second, the circulation change produces a change in horizontal PV advection due to the existence of climatological PV gradients. Thus, as a balanced result, both the circulation change and PV change extend to mid-latitude through horizontal PV advection and PV adaptation. Eventually, Eurasian cooling at the surface and in the lower troposphere is dominated by PV changes at the surface through PV adaptation. Meanwhile, enhanced Eurasian cooling in the middle troposphere is dominated by top-down influences of upper-level PV change through PV adaptation. Nevertheless, the upper-level PV changes are still contributed by horizontal PV advection associated with Arctic warming. Overall, the general dynamics connecting Eurasian cooling with Arctic warming is demonstrated in a PV view.</p>


Author(s):  
Yuya Hamaguchi ◽  
Yukari N. Takayabu

AbstractIn this study, the statistical relationship between tropical upper-tropospheric troughs (TUTTs) and the initiation of summertime tropical-depression type disturbances (TDDs) over the western and central North Pacific is investigated. By applying a spatiotemporal filter to the 34-year record of brightness temperature and using JRA-55 reanalysis products, TDD-event initiations are detected and classified as trough-related (TR) or non-trough-related (non-TR). The conventional understanding is that TDDs originate primarily in the lower-troposphere; our results refine this view by revealing that approximately 30% of TDDs in the 10°N-20°N latitude ranges are generated under the influence of TUTTs. Lead-lag composite analysis of both TR- and non-TR-TDDs clarifies that TR-TDDs occur under relatively dry and less convergent large-scale conditions in the lower-troposphere. This result suggests that TR-TDDs can form in a relatively unfavorable low-level environment. The three-dimensional structure of the wave activity flux reveals southward and downward propagation of wave energy in the upper troposphere that converges at the mid-troposphere around the region where TR-TDDs occur, suggesting the existence of extratropical forcing. Further, the role of dynamic forcing associated with the TUTT on the TR-TDD-initiation is analyzed using the quasi-geostrophic omega equation. The result reveals that moistening in the mid-to-upper troposphere takes place in association with the sustained dynamical ascent at the southeast side of the TUTT, which precedes the occurrence of deep convective heating. Along with a higher convective available potential energy due to the destabilizing effect of TUTTs, the moistening in the mid-to-upper troposphere also helps to prepare the environment favorable to TDDs initiation.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingling Suo ◽  
Yongqi Gao ◽  
Guillaume Gastineau ◽  
Yu-Chiao Liang ◽  
Rohit Ghosh ◽  
...  

<p>The Arctic amplified warming under global warming is one of the prominent climate change events during the past several decades. Arctic sea ice retreat contributed the majority of the near-surface warming, and little to the mid-troposphere warming. The remote factors might contribute to or modulate the aloft Arctic warming.</p><p>Here we performed a multi-model joint-analysis to study the role of the Pacific decadal oscillation, which is one of the most important recurring ocean-atmosphere variability in the climate system, in the tropospheric Arctic warming. In the multi-model simulation, PDO reduced the Arctic warming trend during 1979-2013 significantly in spring, Autumn and early winter season from the near-surface to the upper troposphere. The reduction of warming reaches 0.3 / 0.2 °C per decade in the upper / lower troposphere.</p>


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 11209-11219 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Chung ◽  
H. Cha ◽  
T. Vihma ◽  
P. Räisänen ◽  
D. Decremer

Abstract. There has been growing interest in the vertical structure of the recent Arctic warming. We investigated temperatures at the surface, 925, 700, 500 and 300 hPa levels in the Arctic (north of 70° N) using observations and four reanalyses: ERA-Interim, CFSR, MERRA and NCEP II. For the period 1979–2011, the layers at 500 hPa and below show a warming trend in all seasons in all the chosen reanalyses and observations. Restricting the analysis to the 1998–2011 period, however, all the reanalyses show a cooling trend in the Arctic-mean 500 hPa temperature in autumn, and this also applies to both observations and the reanalyses when restricting the analysis to the locations with available IGRA radiosoundings. During this period, the surface observations mainly representing land areas surrounding the Arctic Ocean reveal no summertime trend, in contrast with the reanalyses whether restricted to the locations of the available surface observations or not. In evaluating the reanalyses with observations, we find that the reanalyses agree better with each other at the available IGRA sounding locations than for the Arctic average, perhaps because the sounding observations were assimilated into reanalyses. Conversely, using the reanalysis data only from locations matching available surface (air) temperature observations does not improve the agreement between the reanalyses. At 925 hPa, CFSR deviates from the other three reanalyses, especially in summer after 2000, and it also deviates more from the IGRA radiosoundings than the other reanalyses do. The CFSR error in summer T925 is due mainly to underestimations in the Canadian-Atlantic sector between 120° W and 0°. The other reanalyses also have negative biases in this longitude band.


2008 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 35-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lance F. Bosart ◽  
Alicia C. Wasula ◽  
Walter H. Drag ◽  
Keith W. Meier

Abstract This paper begins with a review of basic surface frontogenesis concepts with an emphasis on fronts located over sloping terrain adjacent to mountain barriers and fronts located in large-scale baroclinic zones close to coastlines. The impact of cold-air damming and differential diabatic heating and cooling on frontogenesis is considered through two detailed case studies of intense surface fronts. The first case, from 17 to 18 April 2002, featured the westward passage of a cold (side-door) front across coastal eastern New England in which 15°–20°C temperature decreases were observed in less than one hour. The second case, from 28 February to 4 March 1972, featured a long-lived front that affected most of the United States from the Rockies to the Atlantic coast and was noteworthy for a 50°C temperature contrast between Kansas and southern Manitoba, Canada. In the April 2002 case most of New England was initially covered by an unusually warm, dry air mass. Dynamical anticyclogenesis over eastern Canada set the stage for a favorable pressure gradient to allow chilly marine air to approach coastal New England from the east. Diabatic cooling over the chilly (5°–8°C) waters of the Gulf of Maine allowed surface pressures to remain relatively high offshore while diabatic heating over the land (31°–33°C temperatures) enabled surface pressures to fall relative to over the ocean. The resulting higher pressures offshore resulted in an onshore cold push. Frontal intensity was likely enhanced prior to leaf out and grass green-up as virtually all of the available insolation went into sensible heating. The large-scale environment in the February–March 1972 case favored the accumulation of bitterly cold arctic air in Canada. Frontal formation occurred over northern Montana and North Dakota as the arctic air moved slowly southward in conjunction with surface pressure rises east of the Canadian Rockies. The arctic air accelerated southward subsequent to lee cyclogenesis–induced pressure falls ahead of an upstream trough that crossed the Rockies. The southward acceleration of the arctic air was also facilitated by dynamic anticyclogenesis in southern Canada beneath a poleward jet-entrance region. Frontal intensity varied diurnally in response to differential diabatic heating. Three types of cyclogenesis events were observed over the lifetime of the event: 1) low-amplitude frontal waves with no upper-level support, 2) low-amplitude frontal waves that formed in a jet-entrance region, and 3) cyclones that formed ahead of advancing upper-level troughs. All cyclones were either nondeveloping or weak developments despite extreme baroclinicity, likely the result of large atmospheric static stability in the arctic frontal zone and unfavorable alongfront stretching deformation. Significant frontal–mountain interactions were observed over the Rockies and the Appalachians.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 2234-2255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abheera Hazra ◽  
V. Krishnamurthy

Abstract The space–time structure of the leading monsoon intraseasonal oscillation (MISO) in three-dimensional diabatic heating is studied. Using the ERA-Interim data of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the diabatic heating data were constructed by the residual method of the thermodynamic equation. The MISO was extracted by applying multichannel singular spectrum analysis on the daily anomalies of three-dimensional diabatic heating over the South Asian monsoon region for the period 1979–2011.The diabatic heating MISO has a period of 45 days, and exhibits eastward propagation in the equatorial Indian and Pacific Oceans and northward propagation over the entire monsoon region. The horizontal structure shows a long tilted band of heating anomalies propagating northeastward. The period, horizontal pattern, and propagation properties of the diabatic heating MISO are similar to those found in precipitation, outgoing longwave radiation, and circulation in earlier studies. The vertical structure of the diabatic heating MISO indicates deep columns, with maximum values at about 450 hPa, propagating northeastward. The vertical structure of the heating anomalies has good correspondence with that of the moisture anomalies but with a phase difference. The moisture anomalies lead the heating anomalies and may provide a preconditioning process for the propagation mechanism. The temperature anomalies also show oscillatory behavior corresponding to the diabatic heating MISO but the phase difference between the two varies from region to region.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Crespin ◽  
H. Goosse ◽  
T. Fichefet ◽  
M. E. Mann

Abstract. An ensemble of simulations of the climate of the past millennium conducted with a three-dimensional climate model of intermediate complexity are constrained to follow temperature histories obtained from a recent compilation of well-calibrated surface temperature proxies using a simple data assimilation technique. Those simulations provide a reconstruction of the climate of the Arctic that is compatible with the model physics, the forcing applied and the proxy records. Available observational data, proxy-based reconstructions and our model results suggest that the Arctic climate is characterized by substantial variations in surface temperature over the past millennium. Though the most recent decades are likely to be the warmest of the past millennium, we find evidence for substantial past warming episodes in the Arctic. In particular, our model reconstructions show a prominent warm event during the period 1470–1520. This warm period is likely related to the internal variability of the climate system, that is the variability present in the absence of any change in external forcing. We examine the roles of competing mechanisms that could potentially produce this anomaly. This study leads us to conclude that changes in atmospheric circulation, through enhanced southwesterly winds towards northern Europe, Siberia and Canada, are likely the main cause of the late 15th/early 16th century Arctic warming.


2003 ◽  
Vol 60 (13) ◽  
pp. 1593-1607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingbao Wang ◽  
Da-Lin Zhang

Abstract Because of the lack of three-dimensional (3D) high-resolution data and the existence of highly nonelliptic flows, few studies have been conducted to investigate the inner-core quasi-balanced characteristics of hurricanes. In this study, a potential vorticity (PV) inversion system is developed, which includes the nonconservative processes of friction, diabatic heating, and water loading. It requires hurricane flows to be statically and inertially stable but allows for the presence of small negative PV. To facilitate the PV inversion with the nonlinear balance (NLB) equation, hurricane flows are decomposed into an axisymmetric, gradient-balanced reference state and asymmetric perturbations. Meanwhile, the nonellipticity of the NLB equation is circumvented by multiplying a small parameter ɛ and combining it with the PV equation, which effectively reduces the influence of anticyclonic vorticity. A quasi-balanced ω equation in pseudoheight coordinates is derived, which includes the effects of friction and diabatic heating as well as differential vorticity advection and the Laplacians of thermal advection by both nondivergent and divergent winds. This quasi-balanced PV–ω inversion system is tested with an explicit simulation of Hurricane Andrew (1992) with the finest grid size of 6 km. It is shown that (a) the PV–ω inversion system could recover almost all typical features in a hurricane, and (b) a sizeable portion of the 3D hurricane flows are quasi-balanced, such as the intense rotational winds, organized eyewall updrafts and subsidence in the eye, cyclonic inflow in the boundary layer, and upper-level anticyclonic outflow. It is found, however, that the boundary layer cyclonic inflow and upper-level anticyclonic outflow also contain significant unbalanced components. In particular, a low-level outflow jet near the top of the boundary layer is found to be highly unbalanced (and supergradient). These findings are supported by both locally calculated momentum budgets and globally inverted winds. The results indicate that this PV inversion system could be utilized as a tool to separate the unbalanced from quasi-balanced flows for studies of balanced dynamics and propagating inertial gravity waves in hurricane vortices.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongkun Xie ◽  
Guoxiong Wu ◽  
Yimin Liu ◽  
Jianping Huang ◽  
Hanbin Nie

AbstractInvestigating the contrast between wintertime warming in the Arctic and cooling in Eurasia is of great importance for understanding regional climate change. In this study, we propose a dynamic and thermodynamic coupling view of the linkages between wintertime Arctic warming and Eurasian cooling since 1979. The key factors are the energy budget at the Earth’s surface, the diabatic heating and baroclinicity of the atmosphere, and subsurface ocean heat. A summertime origin of wintertime Arctic warming suggests a partial driving role of the Arctic in wintertime Eurasian cooling. The reasons for this finding are as follows. First, there is a dipole pattern in the diabatic heating change in winter over the Arctic Ocean corresponding to the anticyclonic circulation that links Eurasian cooling and Arctic warming. Second, the change in diabatic heating of the atmosphere is determined by sensible heat at the Earth’s surface through vertical diffusion. Third, the positive sensible heat change in the eastern Arctic sector in winter originates from the summertime enhanced absorption of solar radiation by the subsurface ocean over the sea ice loss region. Meanwhile, the negative sensible heat change in the western Arctic sector and wide Arctic warming can be explained by the circulation development triggered by the change in the east. Additionally, the background strong baroclinicity of the atmosphere in mid-high latitudes and corresponding two-way Arctic and mid-latitude interactions are necessary for circulation development in winter. Furthermore, the seasonality of the changes indicates that Eurasian cooling occurs only in winter because the diabatic heating change in the Arctic is strongest in winter. Overall, the comprehensive mechanisms from the summertime Earth’s surface and subsurface ocean to the wintertime atmosphere suggest a driving role of the Arctic. Note that the situation in interannual variability is more complex than the overall trend because the persistence of the influence of summertime sea ice is weakly established in terms of interannual variability.


2007 ◽  
Vol 64 (7) ◽  
pp. 2593-2610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Schumacher ◽  
Minghua H. Zhang ◽  
Paul E. Ciesielski

Abstract Heating profiles calculated from sounding networks and other observations during three Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) field campaigns [the Kwajalein Experiment (KWAJEX), TRMM Large-Scale Biosphere–Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA), and South China Sea Monsoon Experiment (SCSMEX)] show distinct geographical differences between oceanic, continental, and monsoon regimes. Differing cloud types (both precipitating and nonprecipitating) play an important role in determining the total diabatic heating profile. Variations in the vertical structure of the apparent heat source, Q1, can be related to the diurnal cycle, large-scale forcings such as atmospheric waves, and rain thresholds at each location. For example, TRMM-LBA, which occurred in the Brazilian Amazon, had mostly deep convection during the day while KWAJEX, which occurred in the western portion of the Pacific intertropical convergence zone, had more shallow and moderately deep daytime convection. Therefore, the afternoon height of maximum heating was more bottom heavy (i.e., heating below 600 hPa) during KWAJEX compared to TRMM-LBA. More organized convective systems with extensive stratiform rain areas and upper-level cloud decks tended to occur in the early and late morning hours during TRMM-LBA and KWAJEX, respectively, thereby causing Q1 profiles to be top heavy (i.e., maxima from 600 to 400 hPa) at those times. SCSMEX, which occurred in the South China Sea during the monsoon season, had top-heavy daytime and nighttime heating profiles suggesting that mesoscale convective systems occurred throughout the diurnal cycle, although more precipitation and upper-level cloud in the afternoon caused the daytime heating maximum to be larger. A tendency toward bottom- and top-heavy heating profile variations is also associated with the different cloud types that occurred before and after the passage of easterly wave troughs during KWAJEX, the easterly and westerly regimes during TRMM-LBA, and the monsoon onset and postonset active periods during SCSMEX. Rain thresholds based on heavy, moderate, and light/no-rain amounts can further differentiate top-heavy heating, bottom-heavy heating, and tropospheric cooling. These budget studies suggest that model calculations and satellite retrievals of Q1 must account for a large number of factors in order to accurately determine the vertical structure of diabatic heating associated with tropical cloud systems.


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