Atmospheric Response to the Gulf Stream: Seasonal Variations*

Minobe, Shoshiro; Miyashita, Masato; Kuwano-Yoshida, Akira; Tokinaga, Hiroki; Xie, Shang‐Ping

doi:10.1175/2010jcli3359.1

Cited by 165 publications

(178 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…In particular, a smoothing of the sea surface temperature (SST) gradient across the GS is shown to alter and reduce the overlying tropospheric vertical motion, both annually and seasonally [Minobe et al, 2008;Kuwano-Yoshida et al, 2010a], consistent with observational analysis [e.g., Minobe et al, 2010]. In wintertime, this mean atmospheric vertical motion over the GS is known to be set by a continuous series of synoptic systems or "baroclinic waveguide" [Wallace et al, 1988;Chang et al, 2002] that propagate across the region [Parfitt and Czaja, 2015].…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 63%

The atmospheric frontal response to SST perturbations in the Gulf Stream region

Parfitt

Czaja

Minobe

et al. 2016

Geophysical Research Letters

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102

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The link between sea surface temperature (SST) gradients and atmospheric fronts is explored in a general circulation model across the Gulf Stream (GS) region from December to February 1981–2000. Two model experiments are analyzed, one with a realistic control SST distribution and one with a spatially smoothed SST distribution. The analysis shows a noticeable change in regional atmospheric frontal frequency between the two experiments (up to 30%), with the distribution of change exhibiting a clear imprint of the GS SST front. Further analysis of the surface sensible heat flux gradient across cold fronts reveals the pattern of change to be mediated by a thermal interaction between the oceanic and atmospheric fronts (“thermal damping and strengthening”). These results not only emphasize the significance of the GS SST gradient for storm development in the North Atlantic but also highlight the importance of resolution in assessing the role of frontal air‐sea interaction in midlatitude climate variability.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 63%

The atmospheric frontal response to SST perturbations in the Gulf Stream region

Parfitt

Czaja

Minobe

et al. 2016

Geophysical Research Letters

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102

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“…The ocean's mesoscale influence on the atmosphere in the extratropics has been known from observational analyses for some time, both near the surface (e.g., Chelton et al 2004;Xie 2004) and in the free troposphere via precipitation, clouds, and upward winds (e.g., Minobe et al 2008Minobe et al , 2010Tokinaga et al 2009;Frenger et al 2013;J. Ma et al 2015;Smirnov et al 2015).…”

Section: The Global Hydrological Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, the salient feature of the Gulf Stream rainband (Minobe et al 2008) is captured by an atmospheric GCM of about 50-km grid spacing (Minobe et al 2008;Kuwano-Yoshida et al 2010;Scher et al 2017). By direct comparisons between high-resolution and lowresolution regional atmospheric model simulations (Willison et al 2013;Ma et al 2017;Hawcroft et al 2017), it is shown that latent heat release associated with extratropical cyclone development is fundamentally important for realistic winter storm simulations, and it is only when the model has sufficient resolution to resolve small-scale diabatic heating that the full effect of mesoscale air-sea interactions on extratropical cyclogenesis can be correctly simulated.…”

Section: The Global Hydrological Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

The Benefits of Global High Resolution for Climate Simulation: Process Understanding and the Enabling of Stakeholder Decisions at the Regional Scale

Roberts

Vidale

Senior

et al. 2018

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

128

107

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The time scales of the Paris Climate Agreement indicate urgent action is required on climate policies over the next few decades, in order to avoid the worst risks posed by climate change. On these relatively short time scales the combined effect of climate variability and change are both key drivers of extreme events, with decadal time scales also important for infrastructure planning. Hence, in order to assess climate risk on such time scales, we require climate models to be able to represent key aspects of both internally driven climate variability and the response to changing forcings. In this paper we argue that we now have the modeling capability to address these requirements—specifically with global models having horizontal resolutions considerably enhanced from those typically used in previous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) exercises. The improved representation of weather and climate processes in such models underpins our enhanced confidence in predictions and projections, as well as providing improved forcing to regional models, which are better able to represent local-scale extremes (such as convective precipitation). We choose the global water cycle as an illustrative example because it is governed by a chain of processes for which there is growing evidence of the benefits of higher resolution. At the same time it comprises key processes involved in many of the expected future climate extremes (e.g., flooding, drought, tropical and midlatitude storms).

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“…The SST front along the Gulf Stream-North Atlantic current path shifts northward and weakens, which might also impact the North Atlantic storm track, as already shown for the current climate state (e.g. Minobe et al, 2008Minobe et al, , 2010Hand et al, 2014).…”

Section: Projected Changes In the North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…The seasonal coupling between ocean and atmosphere is less understood. Minobe et al (2010) have shown an atmospheric response to Gulf Stream variability with seasonal variations. When also considering the impact of seasonal variations in the total OHT on European climate, the relation becomes even more complex and thus requires a better understanding of the OHT and its coupling to the atmosphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in the seasonal cycle of the Atlantic meridional heat transport in a RCP 8.5 climate projection in MPI-ESM

et al. 2017

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Abstract. We investigate changes in the seasonal cycle of the Atlantic Ocean meridional heat transport (OHT) in a climate projection experiment with the Max Planck Institute Earth System Model (MPI-ESM) performed for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Specifically, we compare a Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) RCP 8.5 climate change scenario, covering the simulation period from 2005 to 2300, to a historical simulation, covering the simulation period from 1850 to 2005. In RCP 8.5, the OHT declines by 30-50 % in comparison to the historical simulation in the North Atlantic by the end of the 23rd century. The decline in the OHT is accompanied by a change in the seasonal cycle of the total OHT and its components. We decompose the OHT into overturning and gyre component. For the OHT seasonal cycle, we find a northward shift of 5 • and latitude-dependent shifts between 1 and 6 months that are mainly associated with changes in the meridional velocity field. We find that the changes in the OHT seasonal cycle predominantly result from changes in the wind-driven surface circulation, which projects onto the overturning component of the OHT in the tropical and subtropical North Atlantic. This leads in turn to latitude-dependent shifts between 1 and 6 months in the overturning component. In comparison to the historical simulation, in the subpolar North Atlantic, in RCP 8.5 we find a reduction of the North Atlantic Deep Water formation and changes in the gyre heat transport result in a strongly weakened seasonal cycle with a weakened amplitude by the end of the 23rd century.

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Atmospheric Response to the Gulf Stream: Seasonal Variations*

Cited by 165 publications

References 74 publications

The atmospheric frontal response to SST perturbations in the Gulf Stream region

The atmospheric frontal response to SST perturbations in the Gulf Stream region

The Benefits of Global High Resolution for Climate Simulation: Process Understanding and the Enabling of Stakeholder Decisions at the Regional Scale

Changes in the seasonal cycle of the Atlantic meridional heat transport in a RCP 8.5 climate projection in MPI-ESM

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