A Census of Atmospheric Variability From Seconds to Decades

Abstract

This paper synthesizes and summarizes atmospheric variability on time scales from seconds to decades through a phenomenological census. We focus mainly on unforced variability in the troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere. In addition to atmosphere-only modes, our scope also includes coupled modes, in which the atmosphere interacts with the other components of the Earth system, such as the ocean, hydrosphere, and cryosphere. The topics covered include turbulence on time scales of seconds and minutes, gravity waves on time scales of hours, weather systems on time scales of days, atmospheric blocking on time scales of weeks, the Madden-Julian Oscillation on time scales of months, the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation and El Niño-Southern Oscillation on time scales of years, and the North Atlantic, Arctic, Antarctic, Pacific Decadal, and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillations on time scales of decades. The paper serves as an introduction to a special collection of Geophysical Research Letters on atmospheric variability. We hope that both this paper and the collection will serve as a useful resource for the atmospheric science community and will act as inspiration for setting future research directions. the atmosphere interacts with the other components of the Earth system, such as the ocean, hydrosphere, and cryosphere. Given these interactions, and the importance of the atmosphere for weather and climate, our intended audience is the entire Geophysical Research Letters readership. Our aim is to provide an authoritative, concise, and accessible point of reference for the most important modes of atmospheric variability. This Commentary serves as an introductory foreword to a virtual special collection of Geophysical Research Letters on atmospheric variability. To initiate the collection, we have identified some of the most influential and definitive papers to have been published in this journal in recent years. Our hope and expectation is that this will be a living collection, which will grow over time whenever seminal new papers are published. The contents of the Commentary are ordered in terms of increasing time scale, from seconds and minutes (section 2), to hours (section 3), days (section 4), weeks (section 5), months (section 6), years (section 7), and decades (section 8). We note at the outset, however, that the time scales of many atmospheric phenomena are not unambiguously defined. For example, the Madden-Julian Oscillation (section 6) is monitored and WILLIAMS ET AL.

How Daily Temperature and Precipitation Distributions Evolve With Global Surface Temperature.

“…The intrinsic, day‐to‐day variation of temperature (T) and precipitation (P), when aggregated over time and given a statistical description, is a key component of the climate (IPCC, ). T and P variability is unique to each region of the Earth, arising from a wide range of unforced atmospheric processes and their links to the land surface, oceans, and cryosphere (e.g., Kay et al, ; Williams et al, ). Over time, the means and shapes of these distributions may change (Deser et al, ; Hawkins & Sutton, ) due to unforced modes of variability on various timescales, such as the El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), or through forced changes, such as the increase in global mean surface temperature (GMST) arising from the sum of anthropogenic emissions.…”

“…One reason for this is that, generally, large amounts of data are needed to separate a forced signal from intrinsic variability. Efforts over recent years (Williams et al, ) have produced a variety of approaches to quantify variability and its influence on means and extremes (Årthun et al, ; Bador et al, ; Bathiany et al, ; Deser et al, ; King et al, ; Lejeune et al, ; Mahlstein et al, ; Schaller et al, ; Wills et al, ; Xu et al, ; Yu & Zhong, ). A tool that has recently become available and that is well‐suited for studying the links between unforced variability and forced changes is large ensemble simulations (LENS) or initial condition ensembles.…”

Cloudiness and Solar Radiation During the Longest Total Solar Eclipse of the 21st Century at Tianhuangping (Zhejiang), China

“…Accordingly, not all cloudiness is reduced by solar eclipses; different spatial scales, micrometeorological or mesometeorological (Orlanski, ), and atmospheric variability (Williams et al, ) can affect how the cloudiness during a solar eclipse is phenomenologically described. From the observations, Anderson () conclude that middle‐ and high‐level clouds usually continue without significant changes.…”

The Effect of Global Warming on Future Water Availability: CMIP5 Synthesis

“…Water Resources Research prescribed historical CO 2 concentration time series, constitute only one possible integration of the historical period among many in the context of internal atmospheric variability (e.g., Deser et al, 2012;Deser et al, 2016;Williams et al, 2017). A table of all available models and realizations considered in this study is available in Table S1.…”