Does the Summer Arctic Frontal Zone Influence Arctic Ocean Cyclone Activity?

Crawford, Alex D.; Serreze, Mark C.

doi:10.1175/jcli-d-15-0755.1

Cited by 81 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Cyclogenesis has been observed in other studies, based on reanalyses, in this region, and these conclusions are slightly at odds with those of Crawford and Serreze (), who found that the AFZ was not an important zone for cyclogeneses. This may be because they defined the AFZ as a narrow band along the coastline, although they also use a different reanalysis and tracking scheme.…”

Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 57%

Growing Land‐Sea Temperature Contrast and the Intensification of Arctic Cyclones

Day

Hodges

2018

Geophysical Research Letters

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Cyclones play an important role in the coupled dynamics of the Arctic climate system on a range of time scales. Modeling studies suggest that storminess will increase in Arctic summer due to enhanced land-sea thermal contrast along the Arctic coastline, in a region known as the Arctic Frontal Zone (AFZ). However, the climate models used in these studies are poor at reproducing the present-day Arctic summer cyclone climatology and so their projections of Arctic cyclones and related quantities, such as sea ice, may not be reliable. In this study we perform composite analysis of Arctic cyclone statistics using AFZ variability as an analog for climate change. High AFZ years are characterized both by increased cyclone frequency and dynamical intensity, compared to low years. Importantly, the size of the response in this analog suggests that General Circulation Models may underestimate the response of Arctic cyclones to climate change, given a similar change in baroclinicity.Plain Language Summary The dramatic reduction in Arctic summer sea ice has led to an increase in human activity and hence exposure to extreme events in the Arctic. Unlike the midlatitude storm tracks, which are most active in winter, the Arctic storm track is most active in summer, exactly during the time when shipping and tourism are on the rise, leading to the obvious question of how climate change is affecting and will affect the storms themselves. Unfortunately, according to previous research by ourselves and others, climate models perform poorly in representing even the basic features, such as the summer maximum in Arctic cyclone frequency. As a result their projections for how Arctic cyclones will change in the future cannot be considered reliable. In this paper we use a new analog approach to assess the impact of a warming Arctic, using the observed record. By comparing statistics for years with high land-sea thermal contrast against years with low, we demonstrate that storms over the Arctic Ocean will likely become more frequent and more dynamically intense as the climate warms, increasing the risk to shipping and other human activities.

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Section: Resultscontrasting

confidence: 57%

Growing Land‐Sea Temperature Contrast and the Intensification of Arctic Cyclones

Day

Hodges

2018

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…4d). The results of Crawford and Serreze (2016) suggest that stronger temperature gradients in the AFZ enhance the dynamical intensity of cyclones passing through this region, so one might expect the simulated increase in this gradient in the RCP8.5 simulations to lead to an increase in cyclone intensities in the AOCM region (as seen in Fig. 3) compared to the historical period.…”

Section: Relationship To Changes In the Background Climatementioning

confidence: 93%

“…However, Arctic cyclones are most dynamically intense during winter (Zhang et al 2004). The source region of Arctic cyclones also differs depending on the season, with summer cyclones largely originating over the Eurasian continent (Reed and Kunkel 1960;Crawford and Serreze 2016) and winter cyclones largely originate from the North Atlantic and North Pacific (Sorteberg and Walsh 2008;Simmonds et al 2008) (Figure S1,S2 & S3). The dramatic warming of the Arctic over the last three decades has reduced both the thickness and area covered by summer sea ice, leaving Arctic waters navigable by shipping exactly during this period of seasonally enhanced cyclone activity in the AOCM region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal differences in the response of Arctic cyclones to climate change in CESM1

2017

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The dramatic warming of the Arctic over the last three decades has reduced both the thickness and extent of sea ice, opening opportunities for business in diverse sectors and increasing human exposure to meteorological hazards in the Arctic. It has been suggested that these changes in environmental conditions have led to an increase in extreme cyclones in the region, therefore increasing this hazard. In this study, we investigate the response of Arctic synoptic scale cyclones to climate change in a large initial value ensemble of future climate projections with the CESM1-CAM5 climate model (CESM-LE). We find that the response of Arctic cyclones in these simulations varies with season, with significant reductions in cyclone dynamic intensity across the Arctic basin in winter, but with contrasting increases in summer intensity within the region known as the Arctic Ocean cyclone maximum. There is also a significant reduction in winter cyclogenesis events within the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian sea region. We conclude that these differences in the response of cyclone intensity and cyclogenesis, with season, appear to be closely linked to changes in surface temperature gradients in the high latitudes, with Arctic poleward temperature gradients increasing in summer, but decreasing in winter.

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“…First, surface diabatic heating over the Arctic Ocean is small (Simmonds & Rudeva, ). Second, the Arctic front, rather than polar front, features strong temperature gradients along the coast of Arctic Ocean and the sea ice edge, establishing conditions favorable to storm intensification (Crawford & Serreze, , ; Inoue & Hori, ; Serreze, ). Lastly, distinct from the wave‐driven midlatitude storms, the Tropopause Polar Vortex (TPV) often plays an important role in the development of Arctic storm (Aizawa & Tanaka, ; Tanaka et al, ; Tao et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Driving Roles of Tropospheric and Stratospheric Thermal Anomalies in Intensification and Persistence of the Arctic Superstorm in 2012

Wei

Zhang

et al. 2017

Geophysical Research Letters

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Intense synoptic‐scale storms have been more frequently observed over the Arctic during recent years. Specifically, a superstorm hit the Arctic Ocean in August 2012 and preceded a new record low Arctic sea ice extent. In this study, the major physical processes responsible for the storm's intensification and persistence are explored through a series of numerical modeling experiments with the Weather Research and Forecasting model. It is found that thermal anomalies in troposphere as well as lower stratosphere jointly lead to the development of this superstorm. Thermal contrast between the unusually warm Siberia and the relatively cold Arctic Ocean results in strong troposphere baroclinicity and upper level jet, which contribute to the storm intensification initially. On the other hand, Tropopause Polar Vortex (TPV) associated with the thermal anomaly in lower stratosphere further intensifies the upper level jet and accordingly contributes to a drastic intensification of the storm. Stacking with the enhanced surface low, TPV intensifies further, which sustains the storm to linger over the Arctic Ocean for an extended period.

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Does the Summer Arctic Frontal Zone Influence Arctic Ocean Cyclone Activity?

Cited by 81 publications

References 70 publications

Growing Land‐Sea Temperature Contrast and the Intensification of Arctic Cyclones

Growing Land‐Sea Temperature Contrast and the Intensification of Arctic Cyclones

Seasonal differences in the response of Arctic cyclones to climate change in CESM1

Driving Roles of Tropospheric and Stratospheric Thermal Anomalies in Intensification and Persistence of the Arctic Superstorm in 2012

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