Influence of atmospheric circulation patterns on local cloud and solar variability in Bergen,Norway

In a previous paper, we have shown that long-term cloud and solar observations (1965–2013) in Bergen, Norway (60.39°N, 5.33°E) are compatible with a largely cloud dominated radiative climate. Here, we explicitly address the relationship between the large scale circulation over Europe and local conditions in Bergen, identifying specific circulation shifts that have contributed to the observed cloud and solar variations. As a measure of synoptic weather patterns, we use the Grosswetterlagen (GWL), a daily classification of European weather for 1881–2013. Empirical models of cloud cover, cloud base, relative sunshine duration, and normalised global irradiance are constructed based on the GWL frequencies, extending the observational time series by more than 70 years. The GWL models successfully reproduce the observed increase in cloud cover and decrease in solar irradiance during the 1970s and 1980s. This cloud-induced dimming is traced to an increasing frequency of cyclonic and decreasing frequency of anticyclonic weather patterns over northern Europe. The changing circulation patterns in winter can be understood as a shift from the negative to the positive phase of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oscillation. A recent period of increasing solar irradiance is observed but not reproduce by the GWL models, suggesting this brightening is associated with factors other than large scale atmospheric circulation, possibly decreasing aerosol loads and local cloud shifts.     

Dependence of Indian monsoon rainfall on moisture fluxes across the Arabian Sea and the impact of coupled model sea surface temperature biases

The Arabian Sea is an important moisture source for Indian monsoon rainfall. The skill of climate models in simulating the monsoon and its variability varies widely, while Arabian Sea cold sea surface temperature (SST) biases are common in coupled models and may therefore influence the monsoon and its sensitivity to climate change. We examine the relationship between monsoon rainfall, moisture fluxes and Arabian Sea SST in observations and climate model simulations. Observational analysis shows strong monsoons depend on moisture fluxes across the Arabian Sea, however detecting consistent signals with contemporaneous summer SST anomalies is complicated in the observed system by air/sea coupling and large-scale induced variability such as the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation feeding back onto the monsoon through development of the Somali Jet. Comparison of HadGEM3 coupled and atmosphere-only configurations suggests coupled model cold SST biases significantly reduce monsoon rainfall. Idealised atmosphere-only experiments show that the weakened monsoon can be mainly attributed to systematic Arabian Sea cold SST biases during summer and their impact on the monsoon-moisture relationship. The impact of large cold SST biases on atmospheric moisture content over the Arabian Sea, and also the subsequent reduced latent heat release over India, dominates over any enhancement in the land-sea temperature gradient and results in changes to the mean state. We hypothesize that a cold base state will result in underestimation of the impact of larger projected Arabian Sea SST changes in future climate, suggesting that Arabian Sea biases should be a clear target for model development.     

Cloud-radiation feedback and atmosphere-ocean coupling in a stochastic multicloud model

Despite recent advances in supercomputing, current general circulation models (GCMs) have significant problems in representing the variability associated with organized tropical convection. Furthermore, due to high sensitivity of the simulations to the cloud radiation feedback, the tropical convection remains a major source of uncertainty in long-term weather and climate forecasts. In a series of recent studies, it has been shown, in paradigm two-baroclinic-mode systems and in aquaplanet GCMs, that a stochastic multicloud convective parameterization based on three cloud types (congestus, deep and stratiform) can be used to improve the variability and the dynamical structure of tropical convection, including intermittent coherent structures such as synoptic and mesoscale convective systems. Here, the stochastic multicloud model is modified with a parameterized cloud radiation feedback mechanism and atmosphere-ocean coupling. The radiative convective feedback mechanism is shown to increase the mean and variability of the Walker circulation. The corresponding intensification of the circulation is associated with propagating synoptic scale systems originating inside of the enhanced sea surface temperature area. In column simulations, the atmosphere ocean coupling introduces pronounced low frequency convective features on the time scale associated with the depth of the mixed ocean layer. However, in the presence of the gravity wave mixing of spatially extended simulations, these features are not as prominent. This highlights the deficiency of the column model approach at predicting the behavior of multiscale spatially extended systems. Overall, the study develops a systematic framework for incorporating parameterized radiative cloud feedback and ocean coupling which may be used to improve representation of intraseasonal and seasonal variability in GCMs.     

Improved atmospheric circulation over Europe by the new generation of CMIP6 earth system models

Global Climate Models (GCMs) generally exhibit significant biases in the representation of large-scale atmospheric circulation. Even after a sensible bias adjustment these errors remain and are inherited to some extent by the derived downscaling products, impairing the credibility of future regional projections. In this study we perform a process-based evaluation of state-of-the-art GCMs from CMIP5 and CMIP6, with a focus on the simulation of the synoptic climatological patterns having a most prominent effect on the European climate. To this aim, we use the Lamb Weather Type Classification (LWT, Lamb British isles weather types and a register of the daily sequence 736 of circulation patterns 1861-1971. METEOROL OFF, GEOPHYS MEM; 737 GB; DA 1972; NO 116; PP 1-85; BIBL 2P1/2, 1972), a subjective classification of circulation weather types constructed upon historical simulations of daily mean sea level pressure. Observational uncertainty has been taken into account by considering four different reanalysis products of varying characteristics. Our evaluation unveils an overall improvement of salient atmospheric circulation features consistent across observational references, although this is uneven across models and large frequency biases still remain for the main LWTs. Some CMIP6 models attain similar or even worse results than their CMIP5 counterparts, although in most cases consistent improvements have been found, demonstrating the ability of the new models to better capture key synoptic conditions. In light of the large differences found across models, we advocate for a careful selection of driving GCMs in downscaling experiments with a special focus on large-scale atmospheric circulation aspects.

     

Competition of NAO regime changes and increasing greenhouse gases and aerosols with respect to Arctic climate projections

Regional magnitudes and patterns of Arctic winter climate changes in consequence of regime changes of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are analyzed using a regional atmospheric climate model. The regional model has been driven with data of positive and negative NAO phases from a control simulation as well as from a time-dependent greenhouse gas and aerosol scenario simulation. Both global model simulations include a quite realistic interannual variability of the NAO with pronounced decadal regime changes and no or rather weak long-term NAO trends. The results indicate that the effects of NAO regime changes on Arctic winter temperatures and precipitation are regionally significant over most of northwestern Eurasia and parts of Greenland. In this regard, mean winter temperature variations of up to 6 K may occur over northern Europe. Precipitation and synoptic variability are also regionally modified by NAO regime changes, but not as significantly as temperatures. However, the climate changes associated with the NAO are in some regions clearly stronger than those attributed to enhanced greenhouse gases and aerosols, indicating that projected global changes of the atmospheric composition and internal circulation changes are competing with each other in their importance for the Arctic climate evolution in the near future. The knowledge of the future NAO trend on decadal and longer time scales appears to be vitally important in terms of a regional assessment of climate scenarios for the Arctic.     

European temperature records of the past five centuries based on documentary/instrumental information compared to climate simulations

Two European temperature reconstructions for the past half-millennium, January-to-April air temperature for Stockholm (Sweden) and seasonal temperature for a Central European region, both derived from the analysis of documentary sources and long instrumental records, are compared with the output of climate simulations with the model ECHO-G. The analysis is complemented by comparisons with the long (early)-instrumental record of Central England Temperature (CET). Both approaches to study past climates (simulations and reconstructions) are burdened with uncertainties. The main objective of this comparative analysis is to identify robust features and weaknesses in each method which may help to improve models and reconstruction methods. The results indicate a general agreement between simulations obtained with temporally changing external forcings and the reconstructed Stockholm and CET records for the multi-centennial temperature trend over the recent centuries, which is not reproduced in a control simulation. This trend is likely due to the long-term change in external forcing. Additionally, the Stockholm reconstruction and the CET record also show a clear multi-decadal warm episode peaking around AD 1730, which is absent in the simulations. Neither the reconstruction uncertainties nor the model internal climate variability can easily explain this difference. Regarding the interannual variability, the Stockholm series displays, in some periods, higher amplitudes than the simulations but these differences are within the statistical uncertainty and further decrease if output from a regional model driven by the global model is used. The long-term trend of the CET series agrees less well with the simulations. The reconstructed temperature displays, for all seasons, a smaller difference between the present climate and past centuries than is seen in the simulations. Possible reasons for these differences may be related to a limitation of the traditional ‘indexing’ technique for converting documentary evidence to temperature values to capture long-term climate changes, because the documents often reflect temperatures relative to the contemporary authors’ own perception of what constituted ‘normal’ conditions. By contrast, the amplitude of the simulated and reconstructed inter-annual variability agrees rather well.     

Changes to the drivers of fire weather with a warming climate – a case study of southeast Tasmania

Projected changes to the global climate system have great implications for the incidence of large infrequent fires in many regions. Here we examine the synoptic-scale and local-scale influences on the incidence of extreme fire weather days and consider projections of the large-scale mean climate to explore future fire weather projections. We focus on a case study region with periodic extreme fire dangers; southeast Tasmania, Australia. We compare the performance of a dynamically downscaled regional climate model with Global Climate Model outputs as a tool for examining the local-scale influences while accounting for high regional variability. Many of the worst fires in Tasmania and the southeast Australian region are associated with deep cold fronts and strong prefrontal winds. The downscaled simulations reproduce this synoptic type with greater fidelity than a typical global climate model. The incidence of systems in this category is projected to increase through the century under a high emission scenario, driven mainly by an increase in the temperature of air masses, with little change in the strength of the systems. The regional climate model projected increase in frequency is smaller than for the global climate models used as input, with a large model range and natural variability. We also demonstrate how a blocking Foehn effect and topographic channelling contributed to the extreme conditions during an extreme fire weather day in Tasmania in January 2013. Effects such as these are likely to contribute to high fire danger throughout the century. Regional climate models are useful tools that enable various meteorological drivers of fire danger to be considered in projections of future fire danger.     

Daily weather mapping from 1781:

An account is given of the preparation of daily weather maps within the historical-instrumental period, with details concerning the detection and location of source material and its subsequent examination, collection and reduction to provide a workable synoptic network of comparable meteorological observations over the eastern North Atlantic-European sector. The application of the Lamb British Isles weather types and Grosswetterlagen for the statistical analysis of circulation patterns derived from these charts is discussed. An objective test was devised whereby the frequency of monthly extremes of nine variables was examined with the following important conclusions:

1. the synoptic charts of the 1780s show no evidence of systematic errors when compared with rainfall figures,
2. the early 1780s was a period of unusually high climatic variability on the month-to-month time-scale, especially in the frequencies of cyclonic and of anticyclonic days.

An account is given of the impact of climate on the affairs of man in the 1780s, highlighting some specific historical case studies and discussing agriculture and industry in general.     

Ability of an ensemble of regional climate models to reproduce weather regimes over Europe-Atlantic during the period 1961–2000

One of the main concerns in regional climate modeling is to which extent limited-area regional climate models (RCM) reproduce the large-scale atmospheric conditions of their driving general circulation model (GCM). In this work we investigate the ability of a multi-model ensemble of regional climate simulations to reproduce the large-scale weather regimes of the driving conditions. The ensemble consists of a set of 13 RCMs on a European domain, driven at their lateral boundaries by the ERA40 reanalysis for the time period 1961–2000. Two sets of experiments have been completed with horizontal resolutions of 50 and 25 km, respectively. The spectral nudging technique has been applied to one of the models within the ensemble. The RCMs reproduce the weather regimes behavior in terms of composite pattern, mean frequency of occurrence and persistence reasonably well. The models also simulate well the long-term trends and the inter-annual variability of the frequency of occurrence. However, there is a non-negligible spread among the models which is stronger in summer than in winter. This spread is due to two reasons: (1) we are dealing with different models and (2) each RCM produces an internal variability. As far as the day-to-day weather regime history is concerned, the ensemble shows large discrepancies. At daily time scale, the model spread has also a seasonal dependence, being stronger in summer than in winter. Results also show that the spectral nudging technique improves the model performance in reproducing the large-scale of the driving field. In addition, the impact of increasing the number of grid points has been addressed by comparing the 25 and 50 km experiments. We show that the horizontal resolution does not affect significantly the model performance for large-scale circulation.     

Variability in annual mean circulation in southern high latitudes

 Using a hierarchy of climate models together with observations from gridded analyses, I examine the atmosphere-only and coupled ocean-atmosphere variability in the general circulation for the region south of 40 °S. The variability in mean sea level pressure (MSLP) is well simulated by the coupled models. A complication is that the difference between the two analyses used for verification is comparable to the analysis-model differences. An increase in variability is seen within the hierarchy of model runs although even a model without interannual variations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) captures most of the observed variability. The temporal variation in MSLP in southern high latitudes has a white spectrum consistent with “random” forcing by weather events and a decoupling from oceanic “integration”. In contrast, the spatial pattern of MSLP variability shows large-scale structure that is consistent between observations and various models, even without interannual variation in SSTs. This shows that the models are sufficiently skillful to reproduce the pattern of observed variability and suggests that the pattern of variability is a characteristic of the land-sea distribution and topography. Received: 18 December 1996/Accepted: 23 May 1997     

Representation of Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks in climate models

Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks are a key element of the winter weather and climate at mid-latitudes. Before projections of climate change are made for these regions, it is necessary to be sure that climate models are able to reproduce the main features of observed storm tracks. The simulated storm tracks are assessed for a variety of Hadley Centre models and are shown to be well modelled on the whole. The atmosphere-only model with the semi-Lagrangian dynamical core produces generally more realistic storm tracks than the model with the Eulerian dynamical core, provided the horizontal resolution is high enough. The two models respond in different ways to changes in horizontal resolution: the model with the semi-Lagrangian dynamical core has much reduced frequency and strength of cyclonic features at lower resolution due to reduced transient eddy kinetic energy. The model with Eulerian dynamical core displays much smaller changes in frequency and strength of features with changes in horizontal resolution, but the location of the storm tracks as well as secondary development are sensitive to resolution. Coupling the atmosphere-only model (with semi-Lagrangian dynamical core) to an ocean model seems to affect the storm tracks largely via errors in the tropical representation. For instance a cold SST bias in the Pacific and a lack of ENSO variability lead to large changes in the Pacific storm track. Extratropical SST biases appear to have a more localised effect on the storm tracks.     

Winter weather regimes over the Mediterranean region: their role for the regional climate and projected changes in the twenty-first century

The winter time weather variability over the Mediterranean is studied in relation to the prevailing weather regimes (WRs) over the region. Using daily geopotential heights at 700 hPa from the ECMWF ERA40 Reanalysis Project and Cluster Analysis, four WRs are identified, in increasing order of frequency of occurrence, as cyclonic (22.0 %), zonal (24.8 %), meridional (25.2 %) and anticyclonic (28.0 %). The surface climate, cloud distribution and radiation patterns associated with these winter WRs are deduced from satellite (ISCCP) and other observational (E-OBS, ERA40) datasets. The LMDz atmosphere–ocean regional climate model is able to simulate successfully the same four Mediterranean weather regimes and reproduce the associated surface and atmospheric conditions for the present climate (1961–1990). Both observational- and LMDz-based computations show that the four Mediterranean weather regimes control the region’s weather and climate conditions during winter, exhibiting significant differences between them as for temperature, precipitation, cloudiness and radiation distributions within the region. Projections (2021–2050) of the winter Mediterranean weather and climate are obtained using the LMDz model and analysed in relation to the simulated changes in the four WRs. According to the SRES A1B emission scenario, a significant warming (between 2 and 4 °C) is projected to occur in the region, along with a precipitation decrease by 10–20 % in southern Europe, Mediterranean Sea and North Africa, against a 10 % precipitation increase in northern European areas. The projected changes in temperature and precipitation in the Mediterranean are explained by the model-predicted changes in the frequency of occurrence as well as in the intra-seasonal variability of the regional weather regimes. The anticyclonic configuration is projected to become more recurrent, contributing to the decreased precipitation over most of the basin, while the cyclonic and zonal ones become more sporadic, resulting in more days with below normal precipitation over most of the basin, and on the eastern part of the region, respectively. The changes in frequency and intra-seasonal variability highlights the usefulness of dynamics versus statistical downscaling techniques for climate change studies.     

基于自组织映射的长江中下游夏季天气分型及其降水特征

利用欧洲中心1979—2015年夏季6—8月ERA-Interim逐日再分析资料和国家气候中心CN05.1格点化降水观测数据集,引入基于自组织映射SOM(Self-Organizing Maps)方法进行长江中下游地区夏季海平面气压空间距平场的客观分型,得到该地区25种地面天气型及其系统演变特征,发现天气型的稳定、转移与天气系统强弱有关。高低压系统越强,天气型停滞频率越高,天气型越稳定;反之,天气型越不稳定。基于SOM天气型转移概率,发现三条与局地降水联系的系统演变路径,其中1号路径暖空气势力强盛,副高北上,推动锋面北抬,产生江北降水型,多发生在7月;路径2反映冷空气势力强盛推动锋面南下的天气过程,产生沿江降水型,该天气型在6、7月均易发生;路径3表现为台风移动变化对长江下游江南地区降水的影响,为江南降水型,且集中在8月。通过引入SOM方法对逐日天气尺度环流进行分型,从气候态上捕捉与降水有关的天气系统的移动变化特征,体现SOM方法在模拟天气系统演变的优势。     

The use of an index-based regression model for precipitation analysis on the Iberian peninsula

Summary  A large number of atmospheric circulation classification techniques have been developed in the investigation of synoptic controls on regional rainfall. Often the rationale is to aid efforts to downscale GCM output for the purpose of producing more confident climate change impact scenarios. Discrete weather typing techniques, although proven to be successful do not capture weather type intensity and within-type variability can often be high. In this study an objective indexing method, developed for Egypt and the British Isles area is applied to the Iberian peninsula. Air flow index values are then used as predictor variables in simple linear regression models to estimate monthly mean grid point rainfall amounts. Separate models are evaluated for the winter and summer halves of the year and also for surface and mid-tropospheric flow (500 hPa). The models are evaluated and compared indicating that the index values provide good estimation of rainfall but variability in performance between season and site is noted. Received February 10, 2000     

昆明准静止锋客观判识方法研究

利用云贵高原1961-2010年逐日地面观测资料和ERA-Interim 0.125°×0.125°再分析资料,根据昆明准静止锋（KQSF）的天气学特性,综合考虑热力场、动力场和锋面系统空间尺度等要素,开展昆明准静止锋锋线的客观判识研究。经过典型天气过程分析和气候资料统计的验证,客观判识方法是合理的。在用客观判识方法计算50年全部昆明准静止锋样本的基础上,统计分析了其时、空分布特征。这一客观判识方法为统一、客观、定量地描述昆明准静止锋的特征及其在气象业务中精细化和数值化的应用提供了途径。     

A novel scheme to derive optimized circulation pattern classifications for downscaling and forecast purposes

Summary Many synoptic classifications that have been introduced share the problem of a large within-type variability. Therefore, there is still the need for refinement, especially when aiming to downscale climate model outputs. The objective scheme proposed here has been developed to derive circulation pattern classifications that optimally distinguish between different values of regional weather elements. In comparison with methods that similarly take local and large-scale information into consideration (such as classification and regression trees [CART]), computational demand is relatively low and human input is practically unwarranted. Recognition of individual cases is based upon composites of the large-scale conditions of several different meteorological parameters such as geopotential heights, temperatures and relative humidities. For each local weather element a so-called screening discriminant analysis is conducted selecting those large-scale synoptic variables yielding optimal selectivity. The procedure is basically analogous to a stepwise screening regression. At each stage the predictor field minimizing the RMSE between forecasts and observations together with the previously chosen predictor fields is selected. The procedure is terminated either when a maximal number of predictor fields is reached or when the inclusion of another field does not result in a further decrease of the RMSE. Similarity between mean large-scale conditions and the individual cases that are to be assigned is determined by means of a slightly modified version of the widespread Euclidean distance.Using daily data from 51 climate stations located in the Elbe river catchment in the northeastern part of Germany and the western part of the Czech Republic, the attainable reduction of climatological variances was calculated for a variety of weather elements. Results prove the ability of the scheme to effectively discriminate large-scale circulation patterns with respect to local weather parameters, especially temperatures (skill scores of approx. 80%).When solely accurate discrimination is of interest, a fuzzy variant can be utilized producing even better results. It yields the percentage of each circulation type for a specific case, i.e. day. However, in this case physical insights can not be obtained.     

Science and Prediction of Heavy Rainfall over China: Research Progress since the Reform and Opening-Up of New China

This paper reviews the major progress on development of the science and prediction of heavy rainfall over China since the beginning of the reform and opening-up of new China(roughly between 1980 and 2019). The progress of research on the physical mechanisms of heavy rainfall over China is summarized from three perspectives: 1) the relevant synoptic weather systems, 2) heavy rainfall in major sub-regions of China, and 3) heavy rainfall induced by typhoons. The development and application of forecasting techniques for heavy rainfall are summarized in terms of numerical weather prediction techniques and objective forecasting methods. Greatly aided by the rapid progress in meteorological observing technology and substantial improvement in electronic computing, studies of heavy rainfall in China have advanced to investigating the evolution of heavy-rain-producing storms and observational analysis of the cloud microphysical features. A deeper and more systematic understanding of the synoptic systems of importance to the production of heavy rainfall has also been developed. Operational forecast of heavy rainfall in China has changed from subjective weather event forecasts to a combination of both subjective and objective quantitative precipitation forecasts, and is now advancing toward probabilistic quantitative precipitation forecasts with the provision of forecast uncertainty information.     

大气环流与灾害性天气气候研究:黄士松先生学术成就和贡献回顾

黄士松先生出生于1920年10月27日,系我国著名的气象学家和气象教育家、新中国气象事业的奠基人之一。他从事气象科学研究六十余载,始终面向世界气象科学前沿,立足中国天气气候实际,围绕大气环流与灾害性天气气候问题,在大气环流成因、副热带高压变动规律、平流层与对流层环流联系、南北半球环流联系、东亚夏季风体系结构和暴雨台风重大灾害性天气过程等诸多研究领域取得了开创性、前瞻性和系统性成果。他提出了诸多新发现、新理论、新观点和新方法,均具有重大学术与实践指导意义,为丰富天气学、气候学及提高中国天气预报和气候预测水平作出了重要学术贡献。值此黄士松先生百年诞辰之际,本文从大气环流、副热带高压、东亚夏季风及暴雨和台风4个方面对先生的主要学术成就进行了回顾,以此纪念和缅怀他对气象科学的重要学术贡献。