Oscillations of the intertropical convergence zone and the genesis of easterly waves. Part I: diagnostics and theory

We examine the mean and transient state of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) by analyzing data and using simple theory. We concentrate on the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean noting that there exists in this region a well-developed mean ITCZ. Furthermore, it is a region where there has been considerable discussion in the literature of whether easterly waves develop in situ or propagate westwards from the Atlantic Ocean. The region is typical of tropical regions where there is a strong cross-equatorial pressure gradient (CEPG): mean convection well removed from the equator but located equatorward of the maximum sea-surface temperature (SST) and minimum sea level pressure (MSLP). Further to the west, near the dateline where the CEPG is much smaller, convection is weaker and collocated with SST and MSLP extrema. It is argued that in regions of significant CEPG that the near-equatorial tropical system is inertially unstable and that the rectification of the instability for a given CEPG determines the location and intensity of the climatological ITCZ. Using simple theoretical arguments, we develop an expression for the mean latitude of the ITCZ as a function of the CEPG. We note on a day-by-day basis that the ITCZ is highly transient state with variability occurring on 3–8 day time scales. Transients with amplitudes about half of the mean ITCZ, propagate northwards from the near-equatorial southern hemisphere as anomalous meridional oscillations, eventually amplifying convection in the vicinity of the mean ITCZ. It is argued that in these longitudes of strong CEPG the mean ITCZ is continually inertially unstable with advections of anticylonic vorticity across the equator resulting in the creation of an oscillating divergence–convergence doublet. The low-level convergence produces convection and the resultant vortex tube stretching generates cyclonic vorticity which counteracts the northward advection of anticylonic vorticity. During a cycle, the mid-troposphere heating near 10oN oscillates between 6 and 12 K/day at the inertial frequency of the latitude of the mean convection. As a result, there exists an anomalous and shallower, oscillating meridional circulation with a magnitude about 50% of the mean ITCZ associated with the stable state following the generation of anticylonic vorticity. Further, it is argued that the instabilities of the ITCZ are directly associated with in situ development of easterly waves which occur with the inertial period of the latitude of the mean ITCZ. The dynamical sequences and the genesis of easterly waves are absent in the regions further to the east where the CEPG is much weaker or absent altogether. In a companion study (Part II), numerical experiments are conducted to test the hypothesis raised in the present study.     

Influence of high latitude ice cover on the marine Intertropical Convergence Zone

We investigate the causes for a strong high latitude imposed ice (land or sea) influence on the marine Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in the Community Climate Model version 3 coupled to a 50-m slab ocean. The marine ITCZ in all the ocean basins shift meridionally away from the hemisphere with an imposed added ice cover, altering the global Hadley circulation with an increased tropical subsidence in the hemisphere with imposed ice and uplift in the other. The effect appears to be independent of the longitudinal position of imposed ice. The anomalous ice induces a rapid cooling and drying of the air and surface over the entire high- and midlatitudes; subsequent progression of cold anomalies occurs in the Pacific and Atlantic northeasterly trade regions, where a wind-evaporation-sea surface temperature (SST) feedback initiates progression of a cold SST ‘front’ towards the ITCZ latitudes. Once the cooler SST reaches the ITCZ latitude, the ITCZ shifts southwards, aided by positive feedbacks associated with the displacement. The ITCZ displacement transports moisture away from the colder and drier hemisphere into the other hemisphere, resulting in a pronounced hemispheric asymmetric response in anomalous specific humidity; we speculate that the atmospheric humidity plays a central role in the hemispheric asymmetric nature of the climate response to high latitude ice cover anomalies. From an energy balance viewpoint, the increased outgoing radiative flux at the latitudes of the imposed ice is compensated by an increased radiative energy flux at the tropical latitudes occupied by the displaced ITCZ, and subsequently transported by the altered Hadley and eddy circulations to the imposed ice latitudes. The situation investigated here may be applicable to past climates like the Last Glacial Maximum where hemispheric asymmetric changes to ice cover occurred. Major caveats to the conclusions drawn include omission of interactive sea ice physics and ocean dynamical feedback and sensitivity to atmospheric physics parameterizations across different models.     

ITCZ的季节内振荡及其与热带气旋发生阶段性的关系

利用中国气象局提供的热带气旋资料和NCEP/NCAR再分析等资料, 研究了热带辐合带(Intertropical Convergence Zone, 简称ITCZ)上对流强度的季节内振荡特征及其与热带气旋生成频数阶段性变化的关系, 并进一步研究了它与越赤道气流、 赤道西风和ITCZ北侧偏东风季节内振荡的关系。研究发现: (1) ITCZ对流强度的变化有明显的30～60 d振荡, 西太平洋 (5°N～20°N, 120°E～150°E) 范围内的热带气旋约有2/3发生在30～60 d振荡的活跃位相。(2) ITCZ季节内振荡在热带地区表现为向东传播的特征, 而在副热带地区 (25°N～35°N) 表现出清晰的西传特征。在ITCZ季节内振荡较强年, 振荡在由赤道传播至15°N左右时, 与北面向南传播的振荡在该纬度附近汇合, 对流强度增强, 使热带气旋在此期间频繁发生。而在弱年, 振荡由赤道一直向北传播至30°N附近, 15°N附近的ITCZ对流较弱, 热带气旋生成偏少。(3) 赤道西风、105°E～110°E越赤道气流和ITCZ北侧的偏东风气流本身也存在30～60 d振荡。这三支气流的30～60 d振荡与ITCZ的季节内强弱变化密切相关。然而, 相比之下偏东风气流的30～60 d振荡和ITCZ对流强弱的30～60 d振荡对应关系略差。     

Diagnosing GCM errors over West Africa using relaxation experiments. Part II: intraseasonal variability and African easterly waves

A near-global grid-point nudging of the Arpege-Climat atmospheric General Circulation Model towards ECMWF reanalyses is used to diagnose the regional versus remote origin of the summer model biases and variability over West Africa. First part of this study revealed a limited impact on the monsoon climatology compared to a control experiment without nudging, but a significant improvement of interannual variability, although the amplitude of the seasonal anomalies remained underestimated. Focus is given here on intraseasonal variability of monsoon rainfall and dynamics. The reproducible part of these signals is investigated through 30-member ensemble experiments computed for the 1994 rainy season, a year abnormally wet over the Sahel but representative of the model systematic biases. In the control experiment, Arpege-Climat simulates too few rainy days that are associated with too low rainfall amounts over the central and western Sahel, in line with the seasonal dry biases. Nudging the model outside Africa tends to slightly increase the number of rainy days over the Sahel, but has little effect on associated rainfall amounts. However, results do indicate that a significant part of the monsoon intraseasonal variability simulated by Arpege-Climat is controlled by lateral boundary conditions. Parts of the wet/dry spells over the Sahel occur in phase in the 30 members of the nudging experiment, and are therefore embedded in larger-scale variability patterns. Inter-member spread is however not constant across the selected summer season. It is partly controlled by African Easterly Waves, which show dissimilar amplitude from one member to another, but a coherent phasing in all members. A lowpass filtering of the nudging fields suggests that low frequency variations in the lateral boundary conditions can lead to eastward extensions of the African Easterly Jet, creating a favorable environment for easterly waves, while high frequency perturbations seem to control their phasing.     

Solitary rossby waves over variable relief and their stability. Part II: numerical experiments

The barotropic, quasi-geostrophic vorticity equation describing large scale, rotating flows over zonal relief supports nonlinear permanent form solutions, namely nonlinear topographic Rossby waves. Through an analytical theory, these solutions have been shown to be neutrally stable to infinitesimal perturbations.Numerical algorithms, which necessarily truncate the infinite number of degrees of freedom of any continuum model to a finite number, are capable of reproducing the numerical equivalent of these form-preserving solutions. Moreover, these numerical solutions are shown to preserve their shape throughout the numerical experiment not only in the limit of small amplitude, but also for high amplitude (Rossby number → O(1)).Through numerical simulation, the stability analysis is carried far beyond the analytical limit of infinitesimal perturbations. The solutions maintain their stability in agreement with the analytical theory, up to perturbations having intensities almost of the same order as the solutions themselves. For higher-amplitude perturbations, the solutions break up and typical turbulent behavior ensues. The passage from wave-like to turbulent behavior, upon surpassing a critical perturbation value, can be observed in the sudden loss of phase locking of the permanent solution Fourier modes.     

Interannual variability of the South Pacific Convergence Zone and implications for tropical cyclone genesis

The interannual variability of the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) and its influence on tropical cyclone (TC) genesis in the South Pacific are investigated using observations and ERA40 reanalysis over the 1979?C2002 period. In austral summer, the SPCZ displays four typical structures at interannual timescales. The first three are characterized by a diagonal orientation of the SPCZ and account for 85% of the summer seasons. One is close to climatology and the other two exhibit a 3° northward or southward departure from the SPCZ climatological position. In contrast, the fourth one, that only encompasses three austral summer seasons (the extreme 1982/1983 and 1997/1998 El Ni?o events and the moderate 1991/1992 El Ni?o event), displays very peculiar behaviour where the SPCZ largely departs from its climatological position and is zonally oriented. Variability of the western/central Pacific equatorial sea surface temperature (SST) is shown to modulate moisture transport south of the equator, thereby strongly constraining the location of the SPCZ. The SPCZ location is also shown to strongly modulate the atmospheric circulation variability in the South Pacific with specific patterns for each class. However, independently of its wide year-to-year excursions, the SPCZ is always collocated with the zero relative vorticity at low levels while the maximum vorticity axis lies 6° to the south of the SPCZ position. This coherent atmospheric organisation in the SPCZ region is shown to constrain tropical cyclogenesis to occur preferentially within 10° south of the SPCZ location as this region combines all the large-scale atmospheric conditions that favour the breeding of TCs. This analysis also reveals that cyclogenesis in the central Pacific (in the vicinity of French Polynesia) only occurs when the SPCZ displays a zonal orientation while this observation was previously attributed to El Ni?o years in general. Different characteristics of El Ni?o Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related Pacific equatorial warming are shown to impact differently on the SPCZ position, suggesting that for regional scales, such as the South Pacific, the SPCZ classification is more appropriate than a simple ENSO index to characterize TC interannual variability. These findings suggest that forecasting the strength of El Ni?o through SST variations in the eastern Pacific may not be sufficient to accurately predict cyclogenesis in the South Pacific, especially east of the dateline.     

Planetary stationary waves in the atmosphere Part II: Thermal stationary waves

The contribution of thermal forcing to the planetary stationary waves will be studied also by assuming that heat balance in stationary waves over zonally asymmetric thermal forcing must be maintained over a long time period. Us-ing the same model of geostrophic waves introduced in Part I, we may explain successfully the observed and simulated responses to the thermal forcing in the atmosphere, such as the wave 1 structure at high levels of middle latitudes, the seasonal changes of the stationary waves in the Northern Hemisphere, the opposite phase distributions of stationary waves at high and low levels of the subtropical regions in both hemispheres and so on.     

Caribbean hurricanes: case study of interacting easterly and westerly waves

This observational study considers Caribbean cyclogenesis in the period 2003?C2009. Numerous events are identified from maximum of low-level relative vorticity and rain rate, and a case study is analyzed. Although fast moving tropical cyclones (TC) pose dangers to Caribbean Islands, it is the slower moving TC that inflict flood damage. The Atlantic warm pool enlarges through October as steering winds slacken. African easterly waves move over the warm pool and draw moist unstable air, while near-equatorial Kelvin waves from the Pacific surge into the Caribbean. The westerly flow accelerates around the northern Andes and is drawn into TC Omar 13?C15 October 2008. A combination of warm pool air and cyclonic vorticity provided by transient zonal waves sets off the process of cyclogenesis.     

台风与西风槽相互作用与赤道辐合带的北跳

利用历史天气图,台风年鉴,以及ＥＣＭＷＦ和ＮＭＣ再分析的风场等资料,研究盛夏一些系统的活动特征及赤道辐合带北跳及其在台风与西风槽相互作用型的关系,得到如下一些事实：（１）块状,自东向西移动的渤海日本海高压,准定常的,河套以东西风槽,低空偏东、偏南急流等系统的活动,都有利于出现台风与西风槽相互作用,有利于出现４００ｍｍ以上台风降水。（２）“７５．８”、“８４．８”和“９８．８”３个台风与西风槽相互作     

Interannual variability and predictability of African easterly waves in a GCM

The interannual variability of African Easterly Waves (AEWs) is assessed with the help of spatio-temporal spectral analysis (STSA) and complex empirical orthogonal functions methods applied to the results of ten-member multiyear ensemble simulations. Two sets of experiments were conducted with the Météo-France ARPEGE-Climat GCM, one with interactive soil moisture (control), and the other with soil moisture relaxed towards climatological monthly means calculated from the control. Composites of Soudano–Sahelian AEWs were constructed and associated physical processes and dynamics were studied in the frame of the waves. It is shown that the model is able to simulate realistically some interannual variability in the AEWs, and that this dynamical aspect of the West African climate is potentially predictable (i.e. signal can be extracted from boundary conditions relatively to internal error of the GCM), especially along the moist Guinean coast. Compared with ECMWF 15-year reanalysis (ERA15), the maximum activity of AEWs is located too far to the South and is somewhat too zonal, but the main characteristics of the waves are well represented. The major impact of soil moisture relaxation in the GCM experiments is to reduce the seasonal potential predictability of AEWs over land by enhancing their internal variability.     

Vortex Rossby waves on smooth circular vortices: Part II. Idealized numerical experiments for tropical cyclone and polar vortex interiors

Idealized linear and nonlinear numerical experiments are carried out to test the predictions of the theory developed in Brunet and Montgomery [Vortex Rossby Waves on Smooth Circular Vortices Part I: Theory (pages 153–177, this issue)]. For a monopolar tropical cyclone-like vortex whose strength lies between a tropical depression and tropical storm, linear theory remains uniformly valid in time in the vortex core for all azimuthal wavenumbers. Examples elucidate aspects of the vortex Rossby wave/merger spin up mechanism proposed previously. For the case of the polar vortex, however, wavenumber 1 disturbances in the continuous spectrum are predicted to develop a nonlinear evolution for realistic polar-night stratospheric-jet configurations and wave breaking is demonstrated to occur within the dynamics of the continuous spectrum.     

Group velocity of anisotropie waves—Part II: Conservative properties

It has been argued in Part I that traditional expression of multidimensional group velocity used in meteorology is only applicable for isotropic waves. While for anisotropic waves, it cannot manifest propagation of waves group along the trajectory of a reference wave point, and varies with rotation of coordinates. The general mathematical ex-pression of group velocity which may be used also for anisotropic waves has been derived in Part I. It will be proved that the mean wave energy, momentum and wave action density are all conserved as a wave group propagates at the general group velocity. Since general group velocity represents the movement of a reference point in either isotropic or anisotropic wave trains, it may be used to define wave rays. The variations of wave parameters along the rays in a slowly varying environment are represented by ray-tracing equations. Using the general group velocity, we may de-rive the anisotropic ray-tracing equations, which give the traditional ray-tracing equations for isotropic waves.     

Convectively coupled Kelvin and easterly waves in a regional climate simulation of the tropics

This study evaluates the performance of a regional climate model in simulating two types of synoptic tropical weather disturbances: convectively-coupled Kelvin and easterly waves. Interest in these two wave modes stems from their potential predictability out to several weeks in advance, as well as a strong observed linkage between easterly waves and tropical cyclogenesis. The model is a recent version of the weather research and forecast (WRF) system with 36-km horizontal grid spacing and convection parameterized using a scheme that accounts for key convective triggering and inhibition processes. The domain spans the entire tropical belt between 45°S and 45°N with periodic boundary conditions in the east–west direction, and conditions at the meridional/lower boundaries specified based on observations. The simulation covers 6 years from 2000 to 2005, which is long enough to establish a statistical depiction of the waves through space-time spectral filtering of rainfall data, together with simple lagged-linear regression. Results show that both the horizontal phase speeds and three-dimensional structures of the waves are qualitatively well captured by the model in comparison to observations. However, significant biases in wave activity are seen, with generally overactive easterly waves and underactive Kelvin waves. Evidence is presented to suggest that these biases in wave activity (which are also correlated with biases in time–mean rainfall, as well as biases in the model’s tropical cyclone climatology) stem in part from convection in the model coupling too strongly to rotational circulation anomalies. Nevertheless, the model is seen to do a reasonable job at capturing the genesis of tropical cyclones from easterly waves, with evidence for both wave accumulation and critical layer processes being importantly involved.     

中国南部沿海暴雨东风波特征及SST影响机制研究

分析1999—2013年影响我国南部沿海的东风波,可分为3类:偏南东风波、西行东风波以及近海东风波。太平洋副热带高压是影响3类东风波特征的关键系统,其西伸与北进直接引导东风波路径及活动位置。东风波的分类合成结构特征显示:强涡度中心指示东风波槽中心,强涡度中心通常位于850 h Pa及以下。东风波低层为强辐合场,槽后有整层的垂直上升区。偏南东风波波槽轴线随高度向西倾斜,西行东风波和近海东风波波槽轴线近乎垂直。合成诊断还显示,东风波的海上移动有向SST(Sea Surface Temperature,海表温度)大值趋暖的趋势。数值模拟证实,增强东风波槽前SST暖中心的强度,将引起槽区低层和槽后中层出现负变高中心,同时SST的增温将通过感热与潜热促使东风波槽强度加强,将进一步地增强东风波暴雨强度和雨带的北移。并增强中低层流场的气旋式气流成分,增强低层辐合场,维持深厚垂直上升运动层。典型西行东风波个例分析显示,螺旋度与东风波强度成正比,东风波纬向位温偏差显示东风波在热力场上具有"上暖下冷"的不稳定垂直结构。东风波涡度增强时,扰动动能向分层扰动位能转化。东风波强度减弱时,分层扰动位能向扰动动能转化。     

Large scale perturbations in extratropical atmosphere—Part II: On geostrophic waves

We have examined, in Part I, the propagation mechanism and geostrophic property of classical Rossby waves in a non-divergent barotropic atmosphere. As we found that the non-divergent Rossby waves do not propagate in a hydrostatically equilibrium atmosphere, and do not manifest a good geostrophic property, an alternative large scale circulation pattern of geostrophic waves has been proposed (McHall, 1991a). The propagation mechanism and geostrophic property of these waves are examined in the present study.     

Planetary stationary waves in the atmosphere Part I: Orographic stationary waves

It is proposed that the orographic stationary waves are required by long-term balance of momentum in the at-mosphere with zonally asymmetric orographic forcing, This hypothesis may be confirmed successfully with the theo-retical model of geostrophic waves. In the Part I, we will explain the observed phase distributions of orographic sta-tionary waves at middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, according to the long-term balance of zonal momentum over the stationary orographic forcing. It is revealed that the geographic distribution of stationary waves depends not only on local topgraphy but also on mean circulation fields and angular momentum flux in the atmos-phere. So these waves cannot be simulated by the models in a restricted area.     

A numerical world ocean general circulation model: Part II. A baroclinic experiment

A new six-layer world ocean general circulation model based on the primitive system of equations is described in detail and its performance in the case of a homogeneous ocean is described. These test integrations show that the model is capable of reproducing the observed mean barotropic or vertically-integrated transport, as well as the seasonal variability of the major ocean gyres. The surface currents, however, are dominated by the Ekman transport, and such non-linear features as the western boundary currents and the equatorial countercurrents are poorly represented. The abyssal boundary countercurrents are also absent due to the lack of thermohaline forcing. The most conspicuous effect of the bottom topography on a homogeneous ocean is seen in the Southern ocean where the calculated Antarctic circumpolar transport through the Drake passage ( ≈ 10 Sv, with bathymetry included) greatly underestimates the observed transport (≈ 100 Sv).