scholarly journals Atmospheric forcing of upwelling along the south-eastern Baltic coast

Baltica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Bednorz ◽  
Bartosz Czernecki ◽  
Marek Półrolniczak ◽  
Arkadiusz M. Tomczyk

The meteorological forcing on the occurrence of upwelling along the south-eastern Baltic Sea coast (Lithuanian-Latvian sector) is analysed in this study. The sea level pressure patterns and the locations of pressure centres inducing and inhibiting upwelling were identified. The research was performed for the years 1982–2017, for the months of May–September, when the sea waters are thermally stratified and the phenomenon is detectable. The frequency of upwelling is the highest in June (approximately 15%), July and August (11–13%) and the lowest in September (7%). The central and northern part of the Lithuanian–Latvian coast is most favourable for upwelling occurrence (frequency up to 20% in summer months). The main features of the sea level pressure patterns that induce upwelling in the research area are positive pressure anomalies spreading over Northern Europe and the Norwegian Sea, while negative anomalies encompass Southern Europe. Airflow around the anticyclonic centres gives a north-eastern component to the wind direction over the Lithuanian-Latvian shore. Two circulation types were recognized as inducing the occurrence of upwelling along the Lithuanian–Latvian coast. Both of them are characterized by the anticyclonic centres located west or northwest of the study area and intensify the northerly or north-easterly airflow over the research area. Different pressure patterns with the negative anomalies of sea level pressure spreading over the North Sea and the positive anomalies underlying Central Europe inhibit upwelling along the Lithuanian–Latvian coast. Such pressure conditions, bring about the western airflow component. More constant western winds restrain the upwelling process and bring about normal thermal stratification of coastal waters. A detailed analysis allowed the recognition of two circulation types inhibiting coastal upwelling in the study area. They reveal dipole patterns of sea level pressure anomalies, but the two inhibiting patterns differ substantially in the intensities and locations of the pressure centres and in wind conditions.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1752 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toma Dabuleviciene ◽  
Igor E. Kozlov ◽  
Diana Vaiciute ◽  
Inga Dailidiene

A detailed study of wind-induced coastal upwelling (CU) in the south-eastern Baltic Sea is presented based on an analysis of multi-mission satellite data. Analysis of moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) sea surface temperature (SST) maps acquired between April and September of 2000–2015 allowed for the identification of 69 CU events. The Ekman-based upwelling index (UI) was applied to evaluate the effectiveness of the satellite measurements for upwelling detection. It was found that satellite data enable the identification of 87% of UI-based upwelling events during May–August, hence, serving as an effective tool for CU detection in the Baltic Sea under relatively cloud-free summer conditions. It was also shown that upwelling-induced SST drops, and its spatial properties are larger than previously registered. During extreme upwelling events, an SST drop might reach 14 °C, covering a total area of nearly 16,000 km2. The evolution of an upwelling front during such intensive events is accompanied by the generation of transverse filaments extending up to 70 km offshore. An analysis of the satellite optical data shows a clear decline in the chlorophyll-a concentration in the coastal zone and in the shallow Curonian Lagoon, where it drops down by an order of magnitude. It was also shown that a cold upwelling front alters the stratification in the atmospheric boundary layer, leading to a sudden drop of air temperature and near-surface winds.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens Spensberger ◽  
Thomas Spengler

<p>Jets in the upper troposphere constitute a cornerstone of both synoptic meteorology and climate dynamics, thus providing a direct link between weather and mid-latitude climate variability. Conventionally, jet variability is mostly inferred indirectly through the variability of geopotential or sea-level pressure. Here we use a feature-based jet detection and present a global climatology of upper tropospheric jets as well as their variability for ocean sectors in both Hemispheres. The jet streams on both hemispheres are found to spiral poleward, featuring a continuous transition from subtropical to eddy-driven jets. Most intrinsic patterns of jet variability represent a changeover from a meridional shifting type variability to a pulsing-type variability, or vice-versa, across each ocean basin.</p><p>For the Southern Hemisphere, we find considerable discrepancies between geopotential and jet-based variability. Specifically, we show that SAM cannot be interpreted in terms of mid-latitude variability, as SAM merely modulates the most poleward part of the cyclone tracks and only marginally influences the distribution of other weather-related features of the storm track (e.g., position of jet axes and Rossby wave breaking). Instead, SAM emerges as the leading pattern of geopotential variability due to strong correlations of sea-level pressure around the Antarctic continent. Considering sector-specific variability pattern, we identify modes of consistent geopotential and jet variability in the South Pacific, and, to a lesser extent, the South Indian Ocean. In the South Pacific the leading mode of variability points towards NAO-like variability.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Gilliland ◽  
Barry D. Keim

AbstractThis study examines the surface wind characteristics of Brazil on the basis of the location of the maximum high pressure center in the South Atlantic basin (SAB), known as the South Atlantic anticyclone (SAA), from three reanalysis datasets for the period of 1980–2014. Linear wind speed trends determined for Brazil are geographically related to surface and macroscale atmospheric conditions found in the SAB. The daily mean position of the SAA exhibited a latitudinal poleward shift for all seasons, and a longitudinal trend was dependent upon extratropical activity found in the SAB. Results also show that wind speed and sea level pressure for northern Brazil are dependent upon the latitudinal position of the SAA. Consequently, surface wind correlations for southern Brazil tend to be related to changes in the longitudinal position of the SAA, which result from transient anticyclones migrating over the SAB. An examination of positive and negative wind anomalies shows that shifts in the position of the SAA are coupled with changes in sea level pressure for northern Brazil and air temperature for southern Brazil. From these findings, a surface wind analysis was performed to demonstrate how the geographical location of the SAA affects wind speed anomalies across Brazil and the SAB. Results from this study can assist in understanding how atmospheric systems change within the SAB so that forthcoming socioeconomic and climate-related causes of wind for the country of Brazil can be known.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (13) ◽  
pp. 4915-4935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund K. M. Chang

Extratropical cyclones are responsible for much of the extreme weather in the midlatitudes; thus, how these cyclones may change under increasing greenhouse gas forcing is of much general interest. Previous studies have suggested a poleward shift in the location of these cyclones, but how the intensity may change remains uncertain, especially in terms of maximum wind speed. In this study, projected changes in extreme cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere, based on 26 models participating in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), are presented. Multiple definitions of extreme cyclones have been examined, including intensity exceeding constant thresholds of sea level pressure perturbations, 850-hPa vorticity, and 850-hPa winds, as well as variable thresholds corresponding to a top-5 or top-1 cyclone per winter month in these three parameters and the near-surface winds. Results presented show that CMIP5 models project a significant increase in the frequency of extreme cyclones in all four seasons regardless of the definition, with over 88% of the models projecting an increase. Spatial patterns of increase are also consistent, with the largest increase projected between 45° and 60°S, extending from the South Atlantic across the south Indian Ocean into the Pacific. The projected increases in cyclone statistics are consistent with those in Eulerian statistics, such as sea level pressure (SLP) variance. However, while the projected increase in SLP variance can be linked to increase in the mean available potential energy (MAPE), the increases in cyclone statistics are not well correlated with those in MAPE.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shraddha Gupta ◽  
Niklas Boers ◽  
Florian Pappenberger ◽  
Jürgen Kurths

AbstractTropical cyclones (TCs) are one of the most destructive natural hazards that pose a serious threat to society, particularly to those in the coastal regions. In this work, we study the temporal evolution of the regional weather conditions in relation to the occurrence of TCs using climate networks. Climate networks encode the interactions among climate variables at different locations on the Earth’s surface, and in particular, time-evolving climate networks have been successfully applied to study different climate phenomena at comparably long time scales, such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, different monsoon systems, or the climatic impacts of volcanic eruptions. Here, we develop and apply a complex network approach suitable for the investigation of the relatively short-lived TCs. We show that our proposed methodology has the potential to identify TCs and their tracks from mean sea level pressure (MSLP) data. We use the ERA5 reanalysis MSLP data to construct successive networks of overlapping, short-length time windows for the regions under consideration, where we focus on the north Indian Ocean and the tropical north Atlantic Ocean. We compare the spatial features of various topological properties of the network, and the spatial scales involved, in the absence and presence of a cyclone. We find that network measures such as degree and clustering exhibit significant signatures of TCs and have striking similarities with their tracks. The study of the network topology over time scales relevant to TCs allows us to obtain crucial insights into the effects of TCs on the spatial connectivity structure of sea-level pressure fields.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamish Steptoe ◽  
Nicholas Henry Savage ◽  
Saeed Sadri ◽  
Kate Salmon ◽  
Zubair Maalick ◽  
...  

AbstractHigh resolution simulations at 4.4 km and 1.5 km resolution have been performed for 12 historical tropical cyclones impacting Bangladesh. We use the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting 5th generation Re-Analysis (ERA5) to provide a 9-member ensemble of initial and boundary conditions for the regional configuration of the Met Office Unified Model. The simulations are compared to the original ERA5 data and the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) tropical cyclone database for wind speed, gust speed and mean sea-level pressure. The 4.4 km simulations show a typical increase in peak gust speed of 41 to 118 knots relative to ERA5, and a deepening of minimum mean sea-level pressure of up to −27 hPa, relative to ERA5 and IBTrACS data. The downscaled simulations compare more favourably with IBTrACS data than the ERA5 data suggesting tropical cyclone hazards in the ERA5 deterministic output may be underestimated. The dataset is freely available from 10.5281/zenodo.3600201.


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