The Life Cycle of an Extratropical Marine Cyclone. Part I: Frontal-Cyclone Evolution and Thermodynamic Air-Sea Interaction

Neiman, Paul J.; Shapiro, M. A.

doi:10.1175/1520-0493(1993)121<2153:tlcoae>2.0.co;2

Cited by 125 publications

(109 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

102

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…An important feature of the midlatitude atmospheric circulation, cyclone activity is closely related to diabatic signals associated with air-sea interaction processes (Neiman and Shapiro 1993;Rudeva and Gulev 2011), instability of the midlatitude flow potentially driven by intrinsic atmospheric variability, and general atmospheric circulation changes that may be controlled by changes in meridional temperature gradient. The most intense cyclogenesis occurs over the storm formation regions over western boundary currents and their extension regions, where strong surface air-sea fluxes force low-level baroclinic instability.…”

Section: E Cyclones and Storm Tracksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal Atmospheric Responses to Reduced Arctic Sea Ice in an Ensemble of Coupled Model Simulations

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Arctic sea ice decline is expected to continue throughout the twenty-first century as a result of increased greenhouse gas concentrations. Here we investigate the impact of a strong Arctic sea ice decline on the atmospheric circulation and low pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere through numerical experimentation with a coupled climate model. More specifically, a large ensemble of 1-yr-long integrations, initialized on 1 June with Arctic sea ice thickness artificially reduced by 80%, is compared to corresponding unperturbed control experiments. The sensitivity experiment shows an ice-free Arctic from July to October; during autumn the largest near-surface temperature increase of about 15 K is found in the central Arctic, which goes along with a reduced meridional temperature gradient, a decreased jet stream, and a southward shifted Northern Hemisphere storm track; and the near-surface temperature response in winter and spring reduces substantially due to relatively fast sea ice growth during the freezing season. Changes in the maximum Eady growth rate are generally below 5% and hardly significant, with reduced vertical wind shear and reduced vertical stability counteracting each other. The reduced vertical wind shear manifests itself in a decrease of synoptic activity by up to 10% and shallower cyclones while the reduced vertical stability along with stronger diabatic heating due to more available moisture may be responsible for the stronger deepening rates and thus faster cyclone development once a cyclone starts to form. Furthermore, precipitation minus evaporation decreases over the Arctic because the increase in evaporation outweighs that for precipitation, with implications for the ocean stratification and hence ocean circulation.

show abstract

Section: E Cyclones and Storm Tracksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal Atmospheric Responses to Reduced Arctic Sea Ice in an Ensemble of Coupled Model Simulations

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Harrold (1973) first described the warm conveyor belt (WCB) flow within a cyclone. Since then there have been a number of studies that attempt to generalize the theory of extratropical cyclone structure using individual case studies (e.g., Browning and Roberts 1994;Neiman and Shapiro 1993). Others have used a number of cyclones from observational campaigns (e.g., Deveson et al 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Climate Models Capture the Structure of Extratropical Cyclones?

2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Composites of wind speeds, equivalent potential temperature, mean sea level pressure, vertical velocity, and relative humidity have been produced for the 100 most intense extratropical cyclones in the Northern Hemisphere winter for the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) and the high resolution global environment model (HiGEM). Features of conceptual models of cyclone structure-the warm conveyor belt, cold conveyor belt, and dry intrusion-have been identified in the composites from ERA-40 and compared to HiGEM. Such features can be identified in the composite fields despite the smoothing that occurs in the compositing process. The surface features and the three-dimensional structure of the cyclones in HiGEM compare very well with those from ERA-40. The warm conveyor belt is identified in the temperature and wind fields as a mass of warm air undergoing moist isentropic uplift and is very similar in ERA-40 and HiGEM. The rate of ascent is lower in HiGEM, associated with a shallower slope of the moist isentropes in the warm sector. There are also differences in the relative humidity fields in the warm conveyor belt. In ERA-40, the high values of relative humidity are strongly associated with the moist isentropic uplift, whereas in HiGEM these are not so strongly associated. The cold conveyor belt is identified as rearward flowing air that undercuts the warm conveyor belt and produces a low-level jet, and is very similar in HiGEM and ERA-40. The dry intrusion is identified in the 500-hPa vertical velocity and relative humidity. The structure of the dry intrusion compares well between HiGEM and ERA-40 but the descent is weaker in HiGEM because of weaker alongisentrope flow behind the composite cyclone. HiGEM's ability to represent the key features of extratropical cyclone structure can give confidence in future predictions from this model.

show abstract

“…Indeed the rapid deepening of storms known as "Bombs" (defined as an extratropical surface cyclone with a surface pressure that falls on the average at least 1mbh -1 for 24 hours) has been observed to occur over the north flank of the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio (Sanders and Gyakum 1980, Sanders 1986, Cione et al 1993. Some of these intense synoptic or mesoscale storms can have unusual warm cores, related to a 'bent-back' warm front, more akin to tropical cyclones than typical extratropical lows (Neiman andShapiro 1993, Businger et al 2005).…”

Section: Gulf Stream and North Atlanticmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acknowledging contributions

2011

Dental Abstracts

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Air-sea interaction at ocean fronts and eddies exhibits positive correlation between sea surface temperature (SST), wind speed, and heat fluxes out of the ocean, indicating that the ocean is forcing the atmosphere. This contrasts with larger scale climate modes where the negative correlations suggest that the atmosphere is driving the system. This paper reviews studies of the interaction of sharp SST gradients and the overlying marine atmospheric boundary layer and deeper atmosphere. The importance of different physical mechanisms of atmospheric response to SST gradients, such as the effect of surface stability variations on momentum transfer, pressure gradients, secondary circulations and cloud cover will be assessed. These processes will be compared and contrasted for different regions such as the Equatorial Front in the Eastern Pacific, and oceanic fronts in mid-latitudes such as the Gulf Stream, Kuroshio, and Agulhas Return Current.

show abstract

The Life Cycle of an Extratropical Marine Cyclone. Part I: Frontal-Cyclone Evolution and Thermodynamic Air-Sea Interaction

Cited by 125 publications

References 0 publications

Seasonal Atmospheric Responses to Reduced Arctic Sea Ice in an Ensemble of Coupled Model Simulations

Seasonal Atmospheric Responses to Reduced Arctic Sea Ice in an Ensemble of Coupled Model Simulations

Can Climate Models Capture the Structure of Extratropical Cyclones?

Acknowledging contributions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About