scholarly journals Observational Evidence of Distinguishable Weather Patterns for Three Types of Sudden Stratospheric Warming During Northern Winter

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyesun Choi ◽  
Joo-Hong Kim ◽  
Baek-Min Kim ◽  
Seong-Joong Kim

Sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events often lead to a cold surface air temperature anomaly over the extratropical regions. In this study, we propose, through observational evidence, that the types of SSW determine the severity of the cold anomaly. Based on the three-type classification of SSW, it is found that the surface air temperature drops notably over central to eastern North America following an SSW-type transition, especially from displacement to split. Note, however, that the differences in mean surface air temperature anomalies between SSW types are not statistically significant, even though after SSW-type transition from displacement to split, surface air temperature anomalies are colder than the other two types. The development of an anomalous tropospheric ridge in the North Pacific Arctic sector, associated with the difference in the vertical and zonal propagation of planetary waves, characterizes the post-warming period of the displacement–split type. After the occurrence of the displacement–split type transition of SSW events, upward propagation of planetary waves of zonal wavenumber 1 is suppressed, whereas planetary waves of zonal wavenumber 2 increase in the troposphere. Accompanying the ridge in the North Pacific, a trough developed downstream over North America that carries cold polar air therein. The results in this study are relevant for the subseasonal time scale, within 20 days after an SSW occurrence.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Binhe Luo ◽  
Dehai Luo ◽  
Aiguo Dai ◽  
Lixin Wu

<p>Winter surface air temperature (SAT) over North America exhibits pronounced variability on sub-seasonal-to-interdecadal timescales, but its causes are not fully understood. Here observational and reanalysis data from 1950-2017 are analyzed to investigate these causes. Detrended daily SAT data reveals 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-) concurs 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<sup>+</sup>), the WWCE dipole weakens and the CNWS dipole is enhanced. In particular, the WWCE dipole is favored by a combination of eastward-displaced PB and NAO<sup>-</sup> that form a negative Arctic Oscillation. Furthermore, a WWCE dipole can form over midlatitude North America when PB occurs together with southward-displaced NAO<sup>+</sup>.The PB events concurring with NAO<sup>-</sup> (NAO<sup>+</sup>) and SAT WWCE (CNWS) dipole are favored by the El Nio-like (La Nia-like) SST mode, though related to the North Atlantic warm-cold-warm (cold-warm-cold) SST tripole pattern. It is also found that the North Pacific mode tends to enhance the WWCE SAT dipole through increasing PB-NAO<sup>-</sup> events and producing the WWCE SAT dipole component related to the PB-NAO<sup>+</sup> events because the PB and NAO<sup>+</sup> form a more zonal wave train in this case.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Se-Yong Song ◽  
Sang-Wook Yeh ◽  
Hyun-Su Jo

AbstractThe leading modes of the North Pacific Jet (NPJ) variability include intensity changes and meridional shifts in jet position on the low frequency timescales. These leading modes of NPJ variability are closely associated with weather and climate conditions spanning from Asia to the United States (US). In this study, we investigated changes in the NPJ’s role as a conduit for US surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies during the boreal winter across the late 1990s. We found that the leading mode of NPJ variability changed from the NPJ intensity changes to meridional shifts in NPJ position across the late 1990s. It leads to the change in the role of NPJ as a conduit for US SAT anomalies. Before the late 1990s, the variability of NPJ’s intensity significantly impacted western US SAT anomalies related to the anomalous surface cyclonic circulation over the North Pacific. After the late 1990s, however, the variability of NPJ’s meridional shift significantly influenced on the eastern US SAT anomalies in association with the anomalous surface cyclonic circulation over the northern North Pacific. Further analysis and model experiments revealed that the western to central North Pacific Ocean has been warming since the late 1990s and modulates atmospheric baroclinicity. This phenomenon mainly leads to a northward NPJ shift and implies that the eddy driven mechanism on the NPJ’s formation, which acts to enhance the meridional variability of NPJ position, becomes dominant. We conclude that this northward shift of NPJ could have contributed to enhancing the NPJ’s meridional shift variability, significantly influencing the eastern US SAT anomalies since the late 1990s.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-68
Author(s):  
Jing Ming ◽  
Jianqi Sun

AbstractThis study investigates the relationship between the central tropical Pacific (CTP) sea surface temperature (SST) and the surface air temperature (SAT) variability un-related to canonical El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over mid-to-high latitude Eurasia during boreal summers over the past half-century. The results show that their relationship experienced a decadal shift around the early 1980s. Before the early 1980s, the Eurasian SAT-CTP SST connection was weak; after that time, the relationship became stronger, and the SAT anomalies exhibited a significant wave-like pattern over Eurasia. Such a decadal change in the Eurasian SAT-CTP SST relationship could be attributed to decadal changes in the mean state and variability of CTP SST. The warmer mean state and enhanced SST variability after the early 1980s reinforced the convective activities over the tropical Pacific, leading to significantly anomalous divergence/convergence and Rossby wave sources over the North Pacific. This outcome further excited the wave train propagating along the Northern Hemisphere zonal jet stream to northern Eurasia and then affected the surface heat fluxes and atmospheric circulations over the region, resulting in wave-like SATs over Eurasia. However, during the period before the early 1980s, the CTP SST had a weak impact on the North Pacific atmospheric circulation and was consequently not able to excite the wave train pattern to impact the Eurasian atmospheric circulation and SATs. The physical processes linking the CTP SST and Eurasian SAT are further confirmed by numerical simulations. The results of this study are valuable to understanding the variability of summer Eurasian SATs.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Martineau ◽  
Hisashi Nakamura ◽  
Yu Kosaka

Abstract. The wintertime influence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on subseasonal variability is revisited by identifying the dominant mode of covariability between 10–60 day band-pass-filtered surface air temperature (SAT) variability over the North American continent and winter-mean sea surface temperature (SST) over the North Pacific sector. We find, in agreement with previous studies, that La Niña conditions tend to enhance the subseasonal SAT variability over western North America. This modulation of subseasonal variability is achieved through interactions between subseasonal eddies and La Niña-related changes in the winter-mean circulation. Specifically, eastward-propagating quasi-stationary eddies over the North Pacific are more efficient in extracting energy from the mean flow through the baroclinic conversion of energy over the North Pacific sector during La Niña. Changes in the vertical structure of these wave anomalies are crucial to enhance the efficiency of energy conversion via amplified downgradient heat fluxes that energize subseasonal eddy thermal anomalies. The combination of increased subseasonal SAT variability and the cold winter-mean response to La Niña both contribute to enhancing the likelihood of cold extremes over western North America.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Najib Yusuf ◽  
Daniel Okoh ◽  
Ibrahim Musa ◽  
Samson Adedoja ◽  
Rabia Said

Background: Simultaneous measurements of air temperature were carried out using automatic weather stations at 14 tropical locations in Nigeria. Diurnal variations were derived from the 5-minute update cycle initial data for the years ranging between 2007 and 2013. The temperature trends in Nigeria revealed a continuous variability that is seasonally dependent within any particular year considered. Method: The analysis was carried out using available data from the network and the results are presented with a focus to characterize the temperature variations at different locations in the country using the mean, maximum and minimum temperatures from the north which is arid in nature to the south, which is a tropical monsoon climate type and a coastal region. Result: In overall, temperature variations in Nigeria were observed to have higher values in the far north, attributed to the influence of Sahara Desert, which has less cloud cover and therefore is more transparent to solar irradiance and lowers values in the south, where there are more cloud cover and abundant vegetation. Conclusion: Measured maximum and minimum temperatures in Nigeria are respectively 43.1°C at Yola (north-east part of Nigeria) and 10.2°C for Jos (north-central part of Nigeria). The least temperature variations were recorded for stations in the southern part of the country, while the largest variations were recorded in the north-central region of the country.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-412
Author(s):  
Patrick Martineau ◽  
Hisashi Nakamura ◽  
Yu Kosaka

Abstract. The wintertime influence of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) variability on subseasonal variability is revisited by identifying the dominant mode of covariability between 10–60 d band-pass-filtered surface air temperature (SAT) variability over the North American continent and winter-mean SST over the tropical Pacific. We find that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) explains a dominant fraction of the year-to-year changes in subseasonal SAT variability that are covarying with SST and thus likely more predictable. In agreement with previous studies, we find a tendency for La Niña conditions to enhance the subseasonal SAT variability over western North America. This modulation of subseasonal variability is achieved through interactions between subseasonal eddies and La Niña-related changes in the winter-mean circulation. Specifically, eastward-propagating quasi-stationary eddies over the North Pacific are more efficient in extracting energy from the mean flow through the baroclinic conversion during La Niña. Structural changes of these eddies are crucial to enhance the efficiency of the energy conversion via amplified downgradient heat fluxes that energize subseasonal eddy thermal anomalies. The enhanced likelihood of cold extremes over western North America is associated with both an increased subseasonal SAT variability and the cold winter-mean response to La Niña.


Author(s):  
J. V. Ratnam ◽  
Masami Nonaka ◽  
Swadhin K. Behera

AbstractThe machine learning technique, namely Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), is used to predict the surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies over Japan in the winter months of December, January and February for the period 1949/50 to 2019/20. The predictions are made for the four regions Hokkaido, North, Central and West of Japan. The inputs to the ANN model are derived from the anomaly correlation coefficients among the SAT anomalies over the regions of Japan and the global SAT and sea surface temperature anomalies. The results are validated using anomaly correlation coefficient (ACC) skill scores with the observation. It is found that the ANN predictions over Hokkaido have higher ACC skill scores compared to the ACC scores over the other three regions. The ANN predicted SAT anomalies are compared with that of ensemble mean of 8 of the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) models besides comparing them with the persistent anomalies. The ANN predictions over all the four regions have higher ACC skill scores compared to the NMME model skill scores in the common period of 1982/83 to 2018/19. The ANN predicted SAT anomalies also have higher Hit rate and lower False alarm rate compared to the NMME predicted SAT anomalies. All these indicate that the ANN model is a promising tool for predicting the winter SAT anomalies over Japan.


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