Modes of interannual variability of Southern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation in CMIP3 models: assessment and projections

An assessment is made of the modes of interannual variability in the seasonal mean summer and winter Southern Hemisphere 500 hPa geopotential height in the twentieth century in models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) dataset. The analysis is done for both the intraseasonal and slow components of the geopotential height. When the CMIP3 models are assessed against reanalysis data, the spatial structure and variance of the leading modes in the intraseasonal component are generally well reproduced. There are systematic differences between the models in their reproduction of the leading modes in the slow component. An overall score using the leading modes in the slow component allows a categorisation of CMIP3 model performance. Using an ensemble from four models that suitably reproduce the twentieth century modes, modes of variability in the slow-internal and slow-external components are estimated. The leading mode of the slow-external component is shown to be related to observed changes in greenhouse gas concentrations. In this ensemble, there is little change in the leading modes in the intraseasonal component in the twenty-first century. Larger changes in variance, and subtle changes in regional-scale structure, are found for the leading modes in the slow-internal component. These are related to changes in the slowly varying dynamics of the Southern Annular Mode and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. By far the biggest change is in the leading mode of the slow-external component. The spatial structure becomes uniform in the twenty-first century, and the variance increases with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.     

Antarctic sea-ice relationships with indices of the atmospheric circulation of the Southern Hemisphere

A link between the Antarctic sea-ice extent and low-frequency atmospheric variations, particularly ENSO, has been suggested by recent modeling and empirical studies. This question is examined here using a high-resolution (by week, by region) data base of Antarctic sea-ice extent for the 1973–1982 period. Although of relatively short duration by Northern Hemisphere standards, such a data base offers an opportunity rare in Southern Hemisphere climate studies. The seaice variations are examined in the context of longer-term indices of the large-scale atmospheric circulation. These are a Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and an index of sea-level pressure (SLP) wavenumber one in the Southern Hemisphere extratropics. The indices are updated through 1982, and their associations with regional-scale pressure indices in the Australia-New Zealand sector are also examined. The 1973–1982 period is anomalous when compared with the period 1951–1972. Correlation analysis of the monthly sea ice and circulation index values reveals that much of the apparent link between the ice and the SOI suggested in previous studies arises from autocorrelations present in both data sets and the strong annual cycle of sea-ice extent. Removing these effects from the data and re-running the correlations reveals that most of the resulting significant associations between the ice and one or other of the circulation indices can probably be explained on the basis of chance. In order to reconcile these findings with previous studies that show some strong ice-circulation interactions on regional scales, only those months in which significant correlations occur between both largescale circulation indices and the sea ice are examined further. These occur preferentially in the Ross and Weddell sectors, which constitute the regions contributing most to the variability of Antarctic sea ice. The analysis suggests that the sea-ice-extent changes lag the SOI by several months but may precede changes in extratropical SLP wavenumber one. Confirmation of these tentative regional ice extent-circulation teleconnections necessarily awaits the forward extension of the high-resolution sea-ice data base beyond the 10 years available here.This paper is based on material presented at the Conference on Mechanisms of Interannual and Longer-Term Climatic Variations held at the University of Melbourne, Australia: December 8–12, 1986.     

Simulation of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere Annular Modes by CAMS-CSM

As leading modes of the planetary-scale atmospheric circulation in the extratropics, the Northern Hemisphere(NH)annular mode(NAM) and Southern Hemisphere(SH) annular mode(SAM) are important components of global circulation, and their variabilities substantially impact the climate in mid-high latitudes. A 35-yr(1979-2013) simulation by the climate system model developed at the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences(CAMS-CSM) was carried out based on observed sea surface temperature and sea ice data. The ability of CAMS-CSM in simulating horizontal and vertical structures of the NAM and SAM, relation of the NAM to the East Asian climate, and temporal variability of the SAM is examined and validated against the observational data. The results show that CAMS-CSM captures the zonally symmetric and out-of-phase variations of sea level pressure anomaly between the midlatitudes and polar zones in the extratropics of the NH and SH. The model has also captured the equivalent barotropic structure in tropospheric geopotential height and the meridional shifts of the NH and SH jet systems associated with the NAM and SAM anomalies. Furthermore, the model is able to reflect the variability of northern and southern Ferrel cells corresponding to the NAM and SAM anomalies. The model reproduces the observed relationship of the boreal winter NAM with the East Asian trough and air temperature over East Asia. It also captures the upward trend of the austral summer SAM index during recent decades. However, compared with the observation, the model shows biases in both the intensity and center locations of the NAM's and SAM's horizontal and vertical structures. Specifically, it overestimates their intensities.     

The interannual leading modes of the extratropical variability in the Southern Hemisphere simulated by the ECHAM-4 atmospheric model

 An ensemble of twenty-three 14-year experiments conducted with the ECHAM-4 GCM has been examined to test the model's capability to simulate the principal modes of interannual variability. The integrations were performed under specified monthly SST between 1979–1993. The analysis was focused on the Southern Hemisphere (SH) extratropics. Empirical orthogonal functions analysis (EOF) using seasonal anomaly fields has been performed to isolate the principal modes that dominate the southern extratropical variability at the interannual time scale. Leading patterns of 500 hPa geopotential height (z500) have been compared with those estimated from the ECMWF re-analysis dataset. The model is able to adequately reproduce the spatial pattern of the annular mode, but it represents the temporal variations of the oscillation less satisfactorily. The model simulation of the Pacific South American (PSA) pattern is better, both in the shape of the pattern and in the temporal evolution. To verify if the capability of the model to adequately simulate the temporal oscillation of the propagating patterns is related to the increased influence of the tropical external forcing, covarying SST-atmospheric modes have been identified by singular value decomposition (SVD). In winter (July-August-September, JAS) the tropical SST variability is highly correlated with the ENSO mode. In summer (January-February-March, JFM) the strength of the teleconnections is related to strong westerly anomalies, disrupted by a meridional out of phase relation near to South America. The large size of the ensemble was exploited by comparing the time-varying model spread and degrees of freedom of the simulated extratropical circulation. Results show that when the extratropical circulation has a few degrees of freedom, the reproducibility is relatively low and the ensemble is governed by a fairly robust zonally symmetric structure of dispersion. Received: 9 May 2000 / Accepted: 30 January 2001     

青藏高原夏季热力状态和南半球大气环流的可能联系

本文通过对观测和再分析数据采用最大协方差分析以及回归、合成等分析方法,研究了青藏高原夏季地表气温与南半球大气环流之间的遥相关关系。结果表明,前期(4月)南半球极地—中高纬度大气环流呈现负位势高度异常、较低纬度印度洋—西太平洋区域呈现正位势高度异常时,高原中部和东部大部分区域夏季出现暖异常。在上述遥相关中,印度洋—西太平洋海温异常可能起到了重要的中间桥梁作用。在高原夏季温度偏高的年份,前期跨赤道的印度洋—西太平洋海温也持续偏暖,带来的海陆热力对比减小、经向跨赤道气流减弱有利于削弱夏季的季风环流,使得高原夏季降水偏少,有利于形成高原夏季的暖异常。在这一高原气温—南半球大气环流的遥相关关系中,4月南半球的大气位势高度场异常和与印度洋—西太平洋海温异常相关的异常高度场分布也十分相似。这一前期的跨赤道区域海温异常与南半球中高纬度位势高度场异常的因果关系仍有待进一步揭示。     

Climate mean,variability and dominant patterns of the Northern Hemisphere wintertime mean atmospheric circulation in the NCEP CFSv2

In this study, the climate mean, variability, and dominant patterns of the Northern Hemisphere wintertime mean 200 hPa geopotential height (Z200) in a CMIP and a set of AMIP simulations from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2) are analyzed and compared with the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis. For the climate mean, it is found that a component of the bias in stationary waves characterized with wave trains emanating from the tropics into both the hemispheres can be attributed to the precipitation deficit over the Maritime continent. The lack of latent heating associated with the precipitation deficit may have served as the forcing of the wave trains. For the variability of the seasonal mean, both the CMIP and AMIP successfully simulated the geographical locations of the major centers of action, but the simulated intensity was generally weaker than that in the reanalysis, particularly for the center over the Davis Strait-southern Greenland area. It is also noted that the simulated action center over Aleutian Islands was southeastward shifted to some extent. The shift was likely caused by the eastward extension of the Pacific jet. Differences also existed between the CMIP and the AMIP simulations, with the center of actions over the Aleutian Islands stronger in the AMIP and the center over the Davis Strait-southern Greenland area stronger in the CMIP simulation. In the mode analysis, the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnection pattern in each dataset was first removed from the data, and a rotated empirical orthogonal function (REOF) analysis was then applied to the residual. The purpose of this separation was to avoid possible mixing between the ENSO mode and those generated by the atmospheric internal dynamics. It was found that the simulated ENSO teleconnection patterns from both model runs well resembled that from the reanalysis, except for a small eastward shift. Based on the REOF modes of the residual data, six dominant modes of the reanalysis data had counterparts in each model simulation, though with different rankings in explained variance and some distortions in spatial structure. By evaluating the temporal coherency of the REOF modes between the reanalysis and the AMIP, it was found that the time series associated with the equatorially displaced North Atlantic Oscillation in the two datasets were significantly correlated, suggesting a potential predictability for this mode.     

欧亚土壤湿度异常对北半球大气环流的显著影响

用44 a ERA40再分析资料的土壤湿度和大气环流变量场, 研究持续性的欧亚大陆土壤湿度异常对后期北半球大尺度大气环流的反馈作用。首先,运用经验正交函数分解去除ENSO遥相关及趋势影响后,分析了欧亚大陆中高纬度土壤湿度变率主要模态的季节变化特征,及相对应主分量时间序列显示的土壤湿度异常的衰减时间,结果表明土壤湿度异常的主要模态在全年都表现出很好的连续性。其次,对不同季节的连续3个月的月平均土壤湿度和500 hPa高度场进行滞后最大协方差分析,研究欧亚地区中高纬度土壤湿度异常与北半球大气环流异常之间的线性耦合。第一最大协方差模态的结果表明:全年的主导信号是大气强迫土壤湿度的变化,但在冬季和夏季,大气中类似于负位相北极涛动的环流型与之前月份(最长达4个月)土壤湿度的持续变化显著相关。最后,基于土壤湿度变率中心的回归分析也证实了秋季和春季欧亚土壤湿度,特别是北非副热带,欧亚内陆和西伯利亚地区的土壤湿度异常,分别与其后的冬季和夏季的大气环流显著相关。欧亚大陆土壤湿度异常超前大气环流的信号,将有助于改善冬季和夏季北半球季节气候预报能力。     

The effect of sea-ice on the transient atmospheric eddies of the Southern Hemisphere

 Two 10 y simulations with a full seasonal cycle and 96×72×19 resolution were carried out with a version of the LMD GCM to diagnose the role of sea-ice on the extratropical climatology of the Southern Hemisphere. The control integration used the usual observed sea-ice distribution, while the anomaly simulation imposed a scenario in which all sea-ice was entirely replaced by open ocean. The simulated control climate was compared with available observational-based analyses. Relevant diagnostics of the time mean and indicators of the transient eddy activity have been evaluated for both integrations. The impact was shown throughout the troposphere and was larger and more organised in winter. We found reduced westerly flow and both falls and rises in sea level pressure in the region from which sea-ice was removed. The removal of ice in the Southern Ocean affects the baroclinic structure of the atmosphere. Changes in baroclinicity and eddy activity are consistent with changes in the mean climate. In general, the meridional wind variance, the poleward transient temperature flux and the eddy flux convergence of westerly momentum were weaker over the Southern Ocean. However, a strengthening of the variance downstream of the subtropical jet was found. The position of the main storm track tends to be slightly displaced equatorward in the anomaly case. Received: 24 February 1998 / Accepted: 13 March 1999     

Modes of variability in the Northern Hemisphere's mid-tropospheric large-scale circulation

Summary In this paper the preferential modes of non-seasonal variation of the 500 hPa height fields and the temporal variations thereof are explored at pentad time steps using S-mode Principal Component Analysis, maximum entropy spectrum analysis, single-channel singular spectrum analysis and the Kendall test of randomness.In a pentad analysis the modes similar to the well-known circulation regimes identified by applying different methods on monthly mean or 1-month mean series (Wallace and Gutzler, 1981; Barnston and Livezey, 1987) are identified and also a number of new modes. Unlike in the previous studies, we obtain some information about the amplitudes of the preferential circulation modes by using composite analysis; significant trends were detected and extracted by performing singular spectrum analysis, in combination with the Kendall test of randomness, and low-frequency fluctuations of about 30–50 days are revealed as being intimately associated with blocking activities. Moreover, a quasi-cycle of about 3.86-year is detected, in association with the so-called PNA teleconnection, which can be related to the low-frequency component of the ENSO phenomenon.With 10 Figures     

Association between modes of variability of January Northern Hemisphere snow cover and circulation

Summary An Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis has been applied to NOAA/NESDIS snow concentration data. The major modes of variability in January Northern Hemisphere snow concentration have been extracted and analysed. The analysis was completed separately over Eurasia and North America. Strong, coherent patterns were found for each of the first three EOFs that were analysed over both continents. Over Eurasia the first EOF showed much of Europe as well as western and central Asia in phase but eastern Asia of the opposite phase although the signal was somewhat weaker. North America had a very similar first EOF with a large positive anomaly centered over Montana reaching loadings of over 0.8. East of the Great Lakes, the anomaly changes sign, although again, its magnitude is much smaller.An EOF examination was also made of the anomalous 700 hPa geopotential height fields. These modes of variability were correlated with those of snow cover with the aim of investigating the mechanisms by which the surface boundary snow and the overlying circulation can interact. The stronger correlations were discussed and logical physical scenarios were presented for each. The results indicate that there was no common pattern whereby one medium was always forcing the other but rather a complex array of interactions where each medium could influence the other. To support the physical basis of the relationships being depicted by the EOF study, a case study of January 1981 was made.The presence of intercontinental relationships was also investigated and such relations were strongly suggested. It was proposed that the large scale organisation of the atmosphere between the two continents could go some way to explaining these links in snow variability.With 6 Figures     

Changes in atmospheric chemistry and the greenhouse effect: A Southern Hemisphere perspective

In the past decades there has been an explosive increase in studies of the chemistry of the atmosphere. These studies have shown that the chemical composition of the global atmosphere is far from constant. There is a clearly discernible chemical weather and climate and the latter is changing.Global atmospheric chemistry is at a relatively embryonic stage and much of the effort thus far has been directed towards the establishment of an observational basis upon which a sound theoretical understanding of chemical weather and climate can be built. Without this framework we will remain unable to rationally assess the consequences of, or even distinguish between, natural and man-made perturbations to the chemistry of the atmosphere or to understand the instabilities that already exist.Parallel with this development is the major upsurge of interest in the warming of the planet now expected with high probability as a result of the increase of the atmospheric levels of the so-called greenhouse gases. Such changes; although not the only environmental changes expected, are likely to have far-reaching effects on society and the natural environment. Serious decisions are ahead as we strive to adapt to and avoid climatically induced change.     

Numerical simulation of Eurasian teleconnection pattern in atmospheric circulation during the Northern Hemisphere winter

In this paper, the anomaly of disturbance height field over Northern Hemisphere due to SST anomaly in the tropical Atlantic Ocean is simulated by using the general circulation model of IAP. A quasi-geostrophic, 34-level spherical coordinate model is also used to compute the distribution of atmospheric circulation anomaly when there is an anomaly of heat source over the tropical Atlantic. The computed results show that, owing to the heat source anomaly over the tropical Atlantic, the EU-pattern anomaly in the winter circulation may be caused. Namely, a ridge will be enhanced over the northwest Europe, a trough will be deepened over Siberia, but a positive anomaly of disturbance height field will be formed over the northeast China, Japan and other areas of East Asia. Moreover, the numerically simulated results show that the above-mentioned EU-pattern anomalies of circulation are due to the propagations of planetary wave train. About 15 days after an anomaly of the heat source over the tropical Atlantic is injected, the EU-pattern anomaly of atmospheric circulation is formed. This is in good agreement with the results analysed theoretically. On the leave from Geophysical Institute, Faculty of Science in Tokyo University, Japan.     

Examining the impact of multiple climate forcings on simulated Southern Hemisphere climate variability

Climate Dynamics - The study examines the influence of external climate forcings, and atmosphere–ocean–sea–ice coupled interaction on the Southern Hemisphere (SH) atmospheric...     

冬季北半球风暴轴的协同变化及其与大气环流的相互作用

基于1971—2016年NCEP/NCAR的逐日、逐月再分析资料,研究冬季北半球西伯利亚风暴轴(Siberian Storm Track,SIST)、北太平洋风暴轴(Pacific Storm Track,PST)和北大西洋风暴轴(Atlantic Storm Track,AST)的协同变化特征及其与大气环流的关系。结果表明:(1)三大风暴轴不仅各自的位置与强度变化存在显著相关性,风暴轴之间也存在一定的协同变化且年代际尺度上比年际尺度上更紧密。年际尺度上,SIST与AST的经度变化呈显著负相关,而PST和AST的协同性较差;年代际尺度上,SIST与PST的经、纬度变化均呈弱的负相关,SIST与AST的经度和强度变化均呈显著正相关,PST与AST的经、纬度变化均呈显著负相关。(2)由联合EOF分析得到北半球风暴轴的协同变化时空特征:在年际尺度上,第一模态主要表现为SIST偏弱(强),PST主体偏弱(强)、东南偏强(弱),AST略偏北(南)偏强(弱)但不显著的协同变化。PC1为正位相时,对应的大气环流异常为:500 hPa高度场上为太平洋北美(Pacific North America,PNA)型和欧亚(Eurasian,EU)型的正位相,东亚急流偏强且偏南;第二模态主要表现为SIST偏强(弱)且偏东(西),PST中东部偏南(北)、西部强度偏强(弱),AST偏强(弱)的协同变化。PC2为正位相时,对应的大气环流异常为:500 hPa高度场上为PNA型和大西洋东部(East Atlantic,EA)型的正位相,北美急流减弱;在年代际尺度上,第一模态主要表现为SIST偏西(东)且偏弱(强),PST偏东(西)且偏弱(强),AST偏西(东)且偏弱(强)的协同变化。PC1为正位相时,对应的大气环流异常为:500 hPa高度场上为西大西洋(West Atlantic,WA)型和EU型的正位相。第二模态主要表现为SIST偏强(弱)且偏北(南),PST偏南(北)且偏弱(强),AST北抬(南压)的协同变化。PC2为正位相时,对应的大气环流异常为:500 hPa高度场上为EU型和WA型的正位相,东亚急流强度加强且偏南,北美急流强度减弱。     

利用我国气温、降水场作恢复东半球夏季大气环流场的试验

本文利用近30年我国气温和降水场试作东半球夏季大气环流场的恢复.从恢复的效果和稳定性来看,结果是令人满意的.对不在样本内的独立资料年代的环流恢复试验,也取得较好效果.本文工作表明,通过适当的方法(经验正交函数分析与逐步回归的结合)恢复历史时期的大气环流是可能的.     

Relationships between the Extratropical ENSO Precursor and Leading Modes of Atmospheric Variability in the Southern Hemisphere

Previous studies suggest that the atmospheric precursor of El Ni ?no–Southern Oscillation(ENSO) in the extratropical Southern Hemisphere(SH) might trigger a quadrapole sea surface temperature anomaly(SSTA) in the South Pacific and subsequently influence the following ENSO. Such a quadrapole SSTA is referred to as the South Pacific quadrapole(SPQ).The present study investigated the relationships between the atmospheric precursor signal of ENSO and leading modes of atmospheric variability in the extratropical SH [including the SH annular mode(SAM), the first Pacific–South America(PSA1) mode, and the second Pacific–South America(PSA2) mode]. The results showed that the atmospheric precursor signal in the extratropical SH basically exhibits a barotropic wavenumber-3 structure over the South Pacific and is significantly correlated with the SAM and the PSA2 mode during austral summer. Nevertheless, only the PSA2 mode was found to be a precursor for the following ENSO. It leads the SPQ-like SSTA by around one month, while the SAM and the PSA1 mode do not show any obvious linkage with either ENSO or the SPQ. This suggests that the PSA2 mode may provide a bridge between the preceding circulation anomalies over the extratropical SH and the following ENSO through the SPQ-like SSTA.     

Response of Northern Hemisphere storm tracks to Indian-western Pacific Ocean warming in atmospheric general circulation models

With 40 years integration output of two atmospheric general circulation models (GAMIL/IAP and HadAM3/UKMO) forced with identical prescribed seasonally-varying sea surface temperature, this study examines the effect of the observed Indian-western Pacific Ocean (IWP) warming on the Northern Hemisphere storm tracks. Both models indicate that the observed IWP warming tends to cause both the North Pacific storm track (NPST) and the North Atlantic storm track (NAST) to move northward. Such a consistent effect on the two storm tracks is closely associated with the changes in the low-level atmospheric baroclinicity, high-level jet stream and upper-level geopotential height. The IWP warming can excite a wavelike circum-global teleconnection in the geopotential height that gives rise to an anticyclonic anomaly over the midlatitude North Pacific and a positive-phase NAO anomaly over the North Atlantic. These geopotential height anomalies tend to enhance upper-level zonal westerly winds north of the climatological jet axes and increase low-level baroclinicity and eddy growth rates, thus favoring transient eddy more active north of the climatological storm track axes, responsible for the northward shift of the both storm tracks. The IWP warming-induced northward shift of the NAST is quite similar to the observed, suggesting that the IWP warming can be one of the key factors to cause decadal northward shift of the NAST since the 1980s. However, the IWP warming-induced northward shift of the NPST is completely opposite to the observed, implying that the observed southward shift of the NPST since the 1980s would be primarily attributed to other reasons, although the IWP warming can have a cancelling effect against those reasons.     

A climatology of Southern Hemisphere anticyclones

A climatology of anticyclones generated by an objective automatic scheme applied to 15 years of once-daily Australian Bureau of Meteorology hemispheric analyses is presented. Contour maps of the anticyclone system density, positions of formation and dissipation together with other statistics are shown. The distribution of anticyclones through the hemisphere was found to be dominated by a mid latitude belt of high density, located in the band 25–42°S, typically 24° south of the time-mean subtropical ridge. Within this band the anticyclone density displays considerable structure with greater system numbers over the eastern parts of the three subtropical ocean basins in the vicinity of the three subtropical ocean time-mean anticyclones. During winter the system density displays a bifurcation in the New Zealand sector, with the highest density along the 30 and 45°S latitude bands. The movement of systems in the subtropical ocean basins was found to be in a general easterly direction with a weak equatorwards component, the transport of systems closely following the orientation of the belt of highest system density. In the vicinity of the African and South American continents, movement was more complex with east-south-east motion upstream, and east-north-east movement downstream, the net transport being such as to encourage a general steering of systems around the continental land masses more particularly during the warmer seasons. To highlight the dynamic role played by these systems and their cyclonic counterparts, we present a limited investigation of the response of Southern Hemisphere synoptic systems to variations of the broader atmospheric system and compare these findings to those obtained by more traditional analysis techniques.