Adjustment of the atmospheric circulation to tropical Pacific SST anomalies: Variability of transient eddy propagation in the Pacific–North America sector

Seager, Richard; Naik, Naomi H.; Ting, Mingfang; Cane, Mark A.; Harnik, Nili; Kushnir, Yochanan

doi:10.1002/qj.588

Cited by 103 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…4, this narrowing of westerly jet downstream plays an important role in generating hydroclimate variability on all timescales over North America. These results support the notion that the leading pattern of total water storage in North America is determined to first order by the downstream jet flow activity (Seager et al 2010).…”

Section: Model Validationsupporting

confidence: 86%

Decadal predictability of soil water, vegetation, and wildfire frequency over North America

et al. 2015

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Section: Model Validationsupporting

confidence: 86%

Decadal predictability of soil water, vegetation, and wildfire frequency over North America

et al. 2015

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“…These can be summarized as dry areas getting drier and wet areas getting wetter and a poleward and equatorward expansion of the subtropical dry zones. These changes arise from intensified atmospheric moisture transports in a warmer, more moist atmosphere and a poleward expansion of Hadley Cell, poleward shift of the midlatitude storm tracks, and equatorward contraction of convergence zones (Held and Soden 2006;Seager et al 2007;Neelin et al 2006;Chou et al 2009;Seager et al 2010c). These changes in P 2 E will create problems in water-stressed arid zones as well as add to flooding hazards in regions expected to get wetter.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, natural climate variability on day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year, and decade-to-decade time scales already causes havoc in terms of agricultural losses, transportation disruption by storms, shortfalls in municipal water supply, flooding in low-lying areas, death by starvation following disrupted food availability or in heat waves, and so on. Recent examples of disruption, suffering, and death caused by climate events that, if not entirely unsullied by the influence of anthropogenic climate change, contain a large component of natural climate variability are the intensely cold and snowy 2009/10 winter in the eastern United States and northwest Europe (Seager et al 2010b;Cattiaux et al 2010), the Pakistan floods (Webster et al 2011) and Russian heat wave (Dole et al 2011) of summer 2010, the intense flooding in northeast Australia early in 2011, and the China drought of winter 2010/11. Although it is clearly important to develop means to adapt to long-term climate trends, a strong case can be made that developing resilience to the worst challenges that natural climate variability can pose will, in and of itself, create a basic level of resilience to anthropogenic climate change (Sarachik 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, if this is so on short time scales of days or less, the same process should work on interannual time scales. For example, El Niñ o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-related P 2 E anomalies and tropical Pacific forced decadal precipitation changes are fundamentally driven by changes in circulation acting on the climatological humidity field Seager 2007; Seager and Naik 2012, hereafter SN12) (and below). As specific humidity rises these same forced circulation anomalies should cause more intensified P 2 E variability and hence more extreme droughts and floods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although adaptation to climate variability is a good first step toward adaptation to climate change, it needs to be known what climate variability to adapt to. Most countries in the world are already stressed by climate variability [including wealthy ones with well-developed infrastructure, as evidenced by, e.g., drought in the southeast United States in 2006/07 (Seager 2007) and floods in the United Kingdom in 2000 (Pall et al 2011)], and if global warming causes the variability to get more extreme this needs to be known. That is what we examine here, focusing on the year-to-year time scale.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does Global Warming Cause Intensified Interannual Hydroclimate Variability?

2012

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The idea that global warming leads to more droughts and floods has become commonplace without clear indication of what is meant by this statement. Here, the authors examine one aspect of this problem and assess whether interannual variability of precipitation P minus evaporation E becomes stronger in the twenty-first century compared to the twentieth century, as deduced from an ensemble of models participating in Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 3. It is shown that indeed interannual variability of P 2 E does increase almost everywhere across the planet, with a few notable exceptions such as southwestern North America and some subtropical regions. The variability increases most at the equator and the high latitudes and least in the subtropics. Although most interannual P 2 E variability arises from internal atmosphere variability, the primary potentially predictable component is related to the El Niñ o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSOdriven interannual P 2 E variability clearly increases in amplitude in the tropical Pacific, but elsewhere the changes are more complex. This is not surprising in that ENSO-driven P 2 E anomalies are primarily caused by circulation anomalies combining with the climatological humidity field. As climate warms and the specific humidity increases, this term leads to an intensification of ENSO-driven P 2 E variability. However, ENSOdriven circulation anomalies also change, in some regions amplifying but in others opposing and even overwhelming the impact of rising specific humidity. Consequently, there is sound scientific basis for anticipating a general increase in interannual P 2 E variability, but the predictable component will depend in a more complex way on both thermodynamic responses to global warming and on how tropically forced circulation anomalies alter.

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Extratropical forcing of tropical wave disturbances along the Indian Ocean ITCZ

Fukutomi

Yasunari

2014

JGR Atmospheres

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The role of extratropical waves in the excitation of tropical waves on submonthly timescales is explored along the Indian Ocean Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) during the austral summer using Japanese Reanalysis products and NOAA outgoing longwave radiation data. The analysis period is December-February of 1979/1980to 2008. The submonthly tropical waves are regarded as a type of Rossby wave propagating along the mean monsoon westerly flow. They play an important role in modulating the Indian Ocean ITCZ convection. The linkage between the tropical and extratropical waves, which is responsible for the formation and strengthening of tropical waves, is examined. Composite analysis results linked to the tropical wave train development show that the midlatitude Rossby wave train progresses eastward and northeastward from the South Atlantic into the subtropical Indian Ocean. As a trough and ridge that form part of the midlatitude wave train approach the southern Africa-southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO) region, a southwest-northeast-oriented wave train is subsequently established, originating from this feature, and is strengthened across the tropical Indian Ocean. The midlatitude wave propagation toward the subtropics induces the growth of the trough and ridge over the SWIO. Wave activity flux diagnostics indicate that the amplified trough and ridge over the SWIO act as an energy source for northeastward amplification of the tropical waves through the wave energy dispersion process. The results suggest that the propagation of the midlatitude wave toward the SWIO is the fundamental mechanism behind the development of the tropical waves along the Indian Ocean ITCZ.

show abstract

Adjustment of the atmospheric circulation to tropical Pacific SST anomalies: Variability of transient eddy propagation in the Pacific–North America sector

Cited by 103 publications

References 35 publications

Decadal predictability of soil water, vegetation, and wildfire frequency over North America

Decadal predictability of soil water, vegetation, and wildfire frequency over North America

Does Global Warming Cause Intensified Interannual Hydroclimate Variability?

Extratropical forcing of tropical wave disturbances along the Indian Ocean ITCZ

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