Relationship Between Atmospheric Teleconnections and the Northern Hemisphere's Circumpolar Vortex

Bushra, Nazla; Rohli, Robert V.

doi:10.1029/2021ea001802

Cited by 5 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…At the synoptic scale, impacts of the major teleconnections as manifested on synoptic types (Sheridan and Lee, 2012; McGregor 2017) and hydroclimatic variability (McGregor, 2017) have been reviewed thoroughly. Regionally, similar work has been done recently for Australia (Frederiksen et al, 2014), the Horn of Africa (Bahaga et al, 2019), and the North Polar area (Bushra and Rohli, 2021). The objective of this research is to review the distinguishing features of the major modes of climate variability and their teleconnections that influence the atmospheric environment of the south-central United States (SCUSA)-defined here as the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas-including a description of those impacts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Impacts of ocean-atmosphere teleconnection patterns on the south-central United States

et al. 2022

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Recent research has linked the climate variability associated with ocean-atmosphere teleconnections to impacts rippling throughout environmental, economic, and social systems. This research reviews recent literature through 2021 in which we identify linkages among the major modes of climate variability, in the form of ocean-atmosphere teleconnections, and the impacts to temperature and precipitation of the South-Central United States (SCUSA), consisting of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. The SCUSA is an important areal focus for this analysis because it straddles the ecotone between humid and arid climates in the United States and has a growing population, diverse ecosystems, robust agricultural and other economic sectors including the potential for substantial wind and solar energy generation. Whereas a need exists to understand atmospheric variability due to the cascading impacts through ecological and social systems, our understanding is complicated by the positioning of the SCUSA between subtropical and extratropical circulation features and the influence of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and the adjacent Gulf of Mexico. The Southern Oscillation (SO), Pacific-North American (PNA) pattern, North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the related Arctic Oscillation (AO), Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation/Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMO/AMV), and Pacific Decadal Oscillation/Pacific Decadal Variability (PDO/PDV) have been shown to be important modulators of temperature and precipitation variables at the monthly, seasonal, and interannual scales, and the intraseasonal Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) in the SCUSA. By reviewing these teleconnection impacts in the region alongside updated seasonal correlation maps, this research provides more accessible and comparable results for interdisciplinary use on climate impacts beyond the atmospheric-environmental sciences.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Impacts of ocean-atmosphere teleconnection patterns on the south-central United States

et al. 2022

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“…Further confusion arises from the distinction between tropospheric “polar” (primarily eddy driven) and “subtropical” (largely radiatively driven) jets. While some recent papers and popular science pieces identify the “tropospheric polar vortex” with the tropospheric polar jet (e.g., Bushra & Rohli, 2021; UCAR, 2021; Waugh et al., 2017), numerous studies show that tropospheric jets are not well‐represented by this simplified conceptual division but rather form a seasonally and regionally varying complex with hybrid radiatively and eddy‐driven features that is rarely continuous around the globe (S. Lee & Kim, 2003; Manney et al., 2014; Spensberger & Spengler, 2020, and references therein).…”

Section: The Stratospheric Polar Vortex Tropospheric Jet Streams and ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While this work is widely cited, the two concepts are still often confused, including on educational websites and in climate change communication studies (e.g., Lyons et al., 2018; Shepherd, 2016; UCAR, 2021; UCDavis, 2019). Even recent papers within the atmospheric science community are not always clear about which circulation feature(s) they are discussing, and some use the term “polar vortex” to describe synoptic‐scale disturbances associated with CAOs, echoing the inaccurate usage in popular media (e.g., Bushra & Rohli, 2019, 2021; Dai et al., 2021; Jiang, 2021; Juzbašić et al., 2021; Kömüşcü & Oğuz, 2021; Nielsen‐Gammon et al., 2021; Overland, 2021; Overland & Wang, 2019; Xiong et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2021). Sometimes the most public‐facing parts of research papers (abstracts, plain language summaries, key points) do not clearly define how the term “polar vortex” is used.…”

Section: The Stratospheric Polar Vortex Tropospheric Jet Streams and ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…CAOs are often termed “polar vortex events” in the news, popular science media, and less specialized peer‐reviewed papers (e.g., Lyons et al., 2018, on communication of climate change risks), but the dynamical processes involved argue that they are best described as equatorward excursions of the tropospheric jets and southward advection of cold Arctic air. These features are not generally correlated with the strength of any globally defined “tropospheric polar vortex” (e.g., Bushra & Rohli, 2021; Cellitti et al., 2006; Waugh et al., 2017), so the utility of the latter concept in relation to CAOs is questionable. CAOs in some regions are indeed more likely, and more likely to be severe, following SSWs (e.g., Huang et al., 2021; King et al., 2019; S. H. Lee et al., 2019), explaining why the media often hails reports of an SSW with “the polar vortex is coming” even though an SSW actually represents a rapid deceleration, or disappearance, of the stratospheric polar vortex winds.…”

Section: The Stratospheric Polar Vortex Tropospheric Jet Streams and ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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What's in a Name? On the Use and Significance of the Term “Polar Vortex”

Manney

Butler

Lawrence

et al. 2022

Geophysical Research Letters

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This commentary appears in the Special Collection focusing on the Arctic stratospheric "polar vortex" in 2019/2020. But how clear are we about what constitutes a "polar vortex"? Confusion persists in the popular press about what a polar vortex is and how polar vortices relate to extreme weather events. This confusion stems in part from imprecise descriptions by the scientific community.In January 2014, a cold air outbreak (CAO) set record-low minimum temperatures throughout the south central and eastern US (e.g., Screen et al., 2015). Headlines hailed it as "the polar vortex," and this language became commonplace in news and popular science media. At the time, the term "polar vortex" in scientific literature typically described the stratospheric polar vortex (see, e.g., Lillo et al., 2021;Waugh et al., 2017, for discussion of this), but some studies used the term to describe the "tropospheric polar vortex" (e.g., Wallace et al., 2014;Yu & Zhang, 2015), in both cases often without further qualification. Waugh et al. (2017) sought to dispel confusion, describing the stratospheric and tropospheric "circumpolar" vortices as these terms had been commonly used in scientific literature, highlighting their differences and relationships to extreme weather events, and providing recommendations for describing them. While this work is widely cited, the two concepts are still often confused, including on educational websites and in climate change communication studies (e.g.,

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“…The CPVs are positioned near the albeit discontinuous surface polar front at a given time, situated near the steepest geopotential height gradient, the sharpest gradient of air temperature, and the fastest flow of the quasi-westerly wind belt, including the polar front jet stream. Spatial features of the NHCPV area and circularity were examined by Bushra and Rohli ( 2019 , 2021a ), and the spatial and temporal features of NHCPV centroid position were described by Bushra and Rohli ( 2021b ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing features of the Northern Hemisphere 500-hPa circumpolar vortex

Bushra¹,

Rohli²,

Li³

et al. 2023

Front. Big Data

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The tropospheric circumpolar vortex (CPV), an important signature of processes steering the general atmospheric circulation, surrounds each pole and is linked to the surface weather conditions. The CPV can be characterized by its area and circularity ratio (Rc), which both vary temporally. This research advances previous work identifying the daily 500-hPa Northern Hemispheric CPV (NHCPV) area, Rc, and temporal trends in its centroid by examining linear trends and periodic cycles in NHCPV area and Rc (1979–2017). Results suggest that NHCPV area has increased linearly over time. However, a more representative signal of the planetary warming may be the temporally weakening gradient which has blurred NHCPV distinctiveness—perhaps a new indicator of Arctic amplification. Rc displays opposing trends in subperiods and an insignificant overall trend. Distinct annual and semiannual cycles exist for area and Rc over all subperiods. These features of NHCPV change over time may impact surface weather/climate.

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Relationship Between Atmospheric Teleconnections and the Northern Hemisphere's Circumpolar Vortex

Cited by 5 publications

References 87 publications

Impacts of ocean-atmosphere teleconnection patterns on the south-central United States

Impacts of ocean-atmosphere teleconnection patterns on the south-central United States

What's in a Name? On the Use and Significance of the Term “Polar Vortex”

Changing features of the Northern Hemisphere 500-hPa circumpolar vortex

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