Abstract

This study examines whether there exist significant differences in tropical cyclone (TC) landfall between central Pacific (CP) El Niño, eastern Pacific (EP) El Niño, and La Niña during the peak TC season (June–October) and how and to what extent CP El Niño influences TC landfall over East Asia for the period 1961–2009. The peak TC season is subdivided into summer [June–August (JJA)] and autumn [September–October (SO)]. The results are summarized as follows: (i) during the summer of CP El Niño years, TCs are more likely to make landfall over East Asia because of a strong easterly steering flow anomaly induced by the westward shift of the subtropical high and northward-shifted TC genesis. In particular, TCs have a greater probability of making landfall over Japan and Korea during the summer of CP El Niño years. (ii) In the autumn of CP El Niño years, TC landfall in most areas of East Asia, especially Indochina, the Malay Peninsula, and the Philippines, is likely to be suppressed because the large-scale circulation resembles that of EP El Niño years. (iii) During the whole peak TC season [June–October (JJASO)] of CP El Niño years, TCs are more likely to make landfall over Japan and Korea. TC landfall in East Asia as a whole has an insignificant association with CP El Niño during the peak TC season. In addition, more (less) TCs are likely to make landfall in China, Indochina, the Malay Peninsula, and the Philippines during the peak TC season of La Niña (EP El Niño) years.

Abstract

The 3D structures of the free oscillations of an adiabatic and hydrostatic atmosphere around a basic state at rest were used as a physical filtering for atmospheric data. This filtering procedure allows for the consideration of the three primitive variables (u, υ, ϕ) over the whole atmosphere simultaneously. Accordingly, the computed statistics do not simply rely on the information provided by a single variable of circulation, such as the 500-hPa geopotential field.

Using this method, two classical patterns were isolated in the barotropic component of the circulation, one resembling the Pacific–North America (PNA) pattern, the other similar to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) pattern in summer. Associating the barotropic and the second baroclinic components, a coupling in variability was retrieved between the strength of the winter stratospheric polar vortex and the tropospheric circulation over the North Atlantic. Until now these modes had only been recovered by means of statistical analysis. This study shows their existence in physically filtered fields.

The obtained results make clear that the observed winter pattern of NAO is not a simple variability mode of the atmosphere, but results instead from mean flow wave interaction that modulates tropospheric planetary Rossby waves.

The association between the NAO circulation variability patterns and the anomalies of the 850-hPa temperature field was also investigated.

Abstract

An analysis is performed on the dynamical coupling between the variability of the extratropical stratospheric and tropospheric circulations during the Northern Hemisphere winter. Obtained results provide evidence that in addition to the well-known Charney and Drazin mechanism by which vertical propagation of baroclinic Rossby waves is nonlinearly influenced by the zonal mean zonal wind, topographic forcing constitutes another important mechanism by which nonlinearity is introduced in the troposphere–stratosphere wave-driven coupled variability. On the one hand, vortex variability is forced by baroclinic Rossby wave bursts, with positive (negative) peaks of baroclinic Rossby wave energy occurring during rapid vortex decelerations (accelerations). On the other hand, barotropic Rossby waves of zonal wavenumbers s = 1 and 3 respond to the vortex state, and strong evidence is presented that such a response is mediated by changes of the topographic forcing due to zonal mean zonal wind anomalies progressing downward from the stratosphere. It is shown that wavenumbers s = 1 and 3 are the dominant Fourier components of the topography in the high-latitude belt where the zonal mean zonal wind anomalies are stronger; moreover, obtained results are in qualitative agreement with the analytical solution provided by the simple topographic wave model of Charney and Eliassen. Finally, evidence is provided that changes of barotropic long (s ≤ 3) Rossby waves associated with vortex variability reproduce a NAO-like dipole over the Atlantic Ocean but no dipole is formed over the Pacific Ocean. Moreover, results suggest that the nonlinear wave response to topographic forcing may explain the spatial changes of the NAO correlation patterns that have been found in previous studies.

Abstract

The annular variability of the northern winter extratropical circulation is reassessed based on reanalysis data that are dynamically filtered by normal modes. One-half of the variability of the monthly averaged barotropic zonally symmetric circulation of the Northern Hemisphere is statistically distinct from the remaining variability and is represented by its leading empirical orthogonal function (EOF) alone. The daily time series of the circulation anomalies projected onto the leading EOF is highly correlated (r ≥ 0.7) with the lower-stratospheric northern annular mode (NAM) indices showing that annular variability extends from the stratosphere deep into the troposphere. However, the geopotential and wind anomalies associated with the leading principal component (PC1) of the barotropic zonally symmetric circulation are displaced northward relative to the zonal mean anomalies associated with the PC1 of the geopotential height variability at single-isobaric tropospheric levels. The regression pattern of the 500-hPa geopotential height (Z500) onto the lower-stratospheric NAM also shows zonally symmetric components displaced northward with respect to those of the leading EOF of the Z500 field.

A principal component analysis (PCA) of the residual variability of the Z500 field remaining after the substraction of the Z500 regressed onto the lower-stratospheric NAM index also reveals a pattern with a zonally symmetric component at midlatitudes. However, this zonally symmetric component appears as the second EOF of the residual variability and is the imprint of two independent dipoles over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Results show that a zonally symmetric component of the middle- and lower-tropospheric circulation variability exists at high latitudes. At the middle latitudes, the zonally symmetric component, if any exists, is artificially overemphasized by the PCA on single-isobaric tropospheric levels.

Accurate and reliable predictions and an understanding of future changes in the stratosphere are major aspects of the subject of climate change. Simulating the interaction between chemistry and climate is of particular importance, because continued increases in greenhouse gases and a slow decrease in halogen loading are expected. These both influence the abundance of stratospheric ozone. In recent years a number of coupled chemistry–climate models (CCMs) with different levels of complexity have been developed. They produce a wide range of results concerning the timing and extent of ozone-layer recovery. Interest in reducing this range has created a need to address how the main dynamical, chemical, and physical processes that determine the long-term behavior of ozone are represented in the models and to validate these model processes through comparisons with observations and other models. A set of core validation processes structured around four major topics (transport, dynamics, radiation, and stratospheric chemistry and microphysics) has been developed. Each process is associated with one or more model diagnostics and with relevant datasets that can be used for validation. This approach provides a coherent framework for validating CCMs and can be used as a basis for future assessments. Similar efforts may benefit other modeling communities with a focus on earth science research as their models increase in complexity.