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

Parfitt, R. L.; Czaja, Arnaud; Minobe, Shoshiro; Kuwano-Yoshida, Akira

doi:10.1002/2016gl067723

Cited by 102 publications

(107 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(32 reference statements)

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“…Ma et al , 2017. These studies reveal how finescale ocean features influence storm density (Minobe et al 2008;Piazza et al 2016), fronts (Masunaga et al 2015;Parfitt et al 2016), jet stream shifts (Piazza et al 2016;X. Ma et al 2015X.…”

Section: The Global Hydrological Cyclementioning

confidence: 93%

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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Section: The Global Hydrological Cyclementioning

confidence: 93%

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 relationship between the storm track and sea surface temperature (SST) fronts associated with western boundary ocean currents, such as the Kuroshio, the Kuroshio Extension, the Oyashio, and the subpolar front in the northwestern Pacific (NWP) as well as the Gulf Stream in the northwestern Atlantic, has been investigated by analyzing observations, reanalysis data, and sensitivity experiments using global and regional atmospheric models in both ideal and realistic situations (Nakamura et al 2004;Minobe et al 2008;Taguchi et al 2009;Sampe et al 2010;Kuwano-Yoshida et al 2010b;Frankignoul et al 2011;Booth et al 2012;Ogawa et al 2012;Taguchi et al 2012;Iizuka et al 2013;KuwanoYoshida et al 2013;Small et al 2014;Smirnov et al 2015;O'Reilly and Czaja 2015;O'Reilly et al 2016;Ma et al 2015;Parfitt et al 2016). Nakamura et al (2004) summarized the relationship among storm tracks, jet streams, and midlatitude oceanic fronts based on observations and reanalyses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Storm-Track Response to SST Fronts in the Northwestern Pacific Region in an AGCM

2017

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The storm-track response to sea surface temperature (SST) fronts in the northwestern Pacific region is investigated using an atmospheric general circulation model with a 50-km horizontal resolution. The following two experiments are conducted: one with 0.258 daily SST data (CNTL) and the other with smoothed SSTs over an area covering SST fronts associated with the Kuroshio, the Kuroshio Extension, the Oyashio, and the subpolar front (SMTHK). The storm track estimated from the local deepening rate of surface pressure (LDR) exhibits a prominent peak in this region in CNTL in January, whereas the storm-track peak weakens and moves eastward in SMTHK. Storm-track differences between CNTL and SMTHK are only found in explosive deepening events with LDR larger than 1 hPa h 21. A diagnostic equation of LDR suggests that latent heat release associated with large-scale condensation contributes to the storm-track enhancement. The SST fronts also affect the large-scale atmospheric circulation over the northeastern Pacific Ocean. The jet stream in the upper troposphere tends to meander northward, which is associated with positive sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies in CNTL, whereas the jet stream flows zonally in SMTHK. A composite analysis for the northwestern Pacific SLP anomaly suggests that frequent explosive cyclone development in the northwestern Pacific in CNTL causes downstream positive SLP anomalies over the Gulf of Alaska. Cyclones in SMTHK developing over the northeastern Pacific enhance the moisture flux along the west coast of North America, increasing precipitation in that region.

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“…To provide a physical-dynamical interpretation of the heat transport extremes discussed in the text, we identify atmospheric fronts using a metric introduced in Sheldon (2015) and later adopted in Geen (2016) and Parfitt et al (2016). Front intensity is defined as…”

Section: B Atmospheric Frontsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A front is then identified at a given location if F $ 0.1 (aquaplanet) or F $ 1 (ERAInterim). These thresholds are chosen to provide spatial and frequency characteristics similar to those of alternative frontal detection methods (Geen 2016;Parfitt et al 2016). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Spatial and Temporal Variability of Atmospheric Heat Transport in a Hierarchy of Models

Messori

Geen

Czaja

2017

Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

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The present study analyzes the spatial and temporal variability of zonally integrated meridional atmospheric heat transport due to transient eddies in a hierarchy of datasets. These include a highly idealized two-layer model seeded with point geostrophic vortices, an intermediate complexity GCM, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim) data. The domain of interest is the extratropics. Both the two-layer model and the GCM display a pronounced temporal variability in the zonally integrated meridional transport, with the largest values (or pulses) of zonally integrated transport being associated with extended regions of anomalously strong local heat transport. In the two-layer model these largescale coherent transport regions, termed ''heat transport bands,'' are linked to densely packed baroclinic vortex pairs and can be diagnosed as low-wavenumber streamfunction anomalies. In the GCM they are associated with both the warm and cold sectors of midlatitude weather systems. Both these features are also found in ERAInterim: the heat transport bands match weather systems and occur primarily in the storm-track regions, which in turn correspond to planetary-scale climatological streamfunction anomalies. The authors hypothesize that the temporal variability of the zonally integrated heat transport is partly linked to oscillatory variations in the stormtrack activity but also contains a background red noise component. The existence of a pronounced variability in the zonally integrated meridional heat transport can have important consequences for the interplay between midlatitude dynamics and the energy balance of the high latitudes.

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

Cited by 102 publications

References 26 publications

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

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

Storm-Track Response to SST Fronts in the Northwestern Pacific Region in an AGCM

On the Spatial and Temporal Variability of Atmospheric Heat Transport in a Hierarchy of Models

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