An Assessment of Representation of Oceanic Mesoscale Eddy‐Atmosphere Interaction in the Current Generation of General Circulation Models and Reanalyses

Yang, Peiran; Jing, Zhao; Wu, Lixin

doi:10.1029/2018gl080678

Cited by 20 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Despite such progress, a major knowledge gap remains in the understanding of small-scale air-sea heat and moisture fluxes associated with mesoscale SST and their impacts on weather and climate. There is mounting evidence that there are intense interactions between the atmosphere and ocean on the scales of ocean eddies, and the need for improved resolution of observational systems is growing as these scales appear to impact weather and climate simulations (e.g., [25,26]). Recent research relates our inability to accurately represent ~25 km oceanic forcing of atmospheric features from synoptic to seasonal timescales to our lack of skill in predicting extreme events like drought, flooding, and heat waves [27][28][29][30][31][32].…”

Section: Figure 1 (A)mentioning

confidence: 99%

FluxSat: Measuring the Ocean–Atmosphere Turbulent Exchange of Heat and Moisture from Space

et al. 2020

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Recent results using wind and sea surface temperature data from satellites and high-resolution coupled models suggest that mesoscale ocean–atmosphere interactions affect the locations and evolution of storms and seasonal precipitation over continental regions such as the western US and Europe. The processes responsible for this coupling are difficult to verify due to the paucity of accurate air–sea turbulent heat and moisture flux data. These fluxes are currently derived by combining satellite measurements that are not coincident and have differing and relatively low spatial resolutions, introducing sampling errors that are largest in regions with high spatial and temporal variability. Observational errors related to sensor design also contribute to increased uncertainty. Leveraging recent advances in sensor technology, we here describe a satellite mission concept, FluxSat, that aims to simultaneously measure all variables necessary for accurate estimation of ocean–atmosphere turbulent heat and moisture fluxes and capture the effect of oceanic mesoscale forcing. Sensor design is expected to reduce observational errors of the latent and sensible heat fluxes by almost 50%. FluxSat will improve the accuracy of the fluxes at spatial scales critical to understanding the coupled ocean–atmosphere boundary layer system, providing measurements needed to improve weather forecasts and climate model simulations.

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Section: Figure 1 (A)mentioning

confidence: 99%

FluxSat: Measuring the Ocean–Atmosphere Turbulent Exchange of Heat and Moisture from Space

et al. 2020

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“…The eddy current's imprint on wind stress acts to dissipate EKE (Eden & Dietze, 2009;Renault et al, 2016), while the SSTAs carried by eddies induce a dipolar wind stress curl anomaly, affecting eddies' propagation through Ekman pumping (Gaube et al, 2015;Seo et al, 2016). More recently, the turbulent heat flux anomalies induced by eddies are found to damp mesoscale SSTAs (Bishop et al, 2017;Li et al, 2017), leading to a destruction of EPE (Ma et al, 2016;Yang et al, 2018) (referred to as the OME-A EPE feedback henceforth). A particular question this study attempts to address is as follows: Can this OME-A EPE feedback affect the large-scale SST by regulating the vertical eddy heat transport through its impact on the EPE budget?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface Heat Flux Induced by Mesoscale Eddies Cools the Kuroshio‐Oyashio Extension Region

Shan

Jing

Gan

et al. 2020

Geophysical Research Letters

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Sea surface temperature (SST) is a key player in the air‐sea interaction, influencing storm tracks, atmospheric circulation, and climate modes. Although prevailing theories attribute variations of large‐scale SST to atmosphere forcing and ocean internal dynamics, we find that sea surface heat flux anomalies induced by mesoscale eddies exert significant influences on the upper‐ocean heat budget in the Kuroshio‐Oyashio extension region. Despite making nearly no contribution to the net heat exchange at the air‐sea interface, the eddy‐induced heat flux anomalies weaken the thermal stratification in the upper ocean and result in pronounced sea surface cooling. The underlying dynamics is the efficient dissipation of eddy potential energy by eddy‐induced heat flux anomalies. This makes the conversion of eddy potential energy to eddy kinetic energy significantly reduced, corresponding to a weaker eddy‐induced restratification flux. The finding complements the existing theories on large‐scale SST dynamics and has important implications for understanding extratropical climate variability.

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“…The boundary and initial conditions are obtained from a parent ROMS simulation configured over the North Pacific (998-2708E, 3.68-668N) with 9-km horizontal resolution and 50 vertical levels. The effects of atmosphere synoptic forcing, eddy thermal and current feedbacks are all included in CTRL, although the eddy thermal and current feedbacks tend to be moderately overestimated due to the lack of atmosphere's adjustment to eddy-induced SST and current anomalies (Renault et al 2016;Yang et al 2018), which is acceptable for our qualitative analysis. Accurate representation of these feedbacks requires coupled simulations that are currently challenging at 1-km resolution.…”

Section: A Numerical Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Upper-Ocean Vertical Eddy Heat Transport in the Kuroshio Extension. Part II: Effects of Air–Sea Interactions

Yang

Jing

Sun

et al. 2021

Journal of Physical Oceanography

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Encountering of energetic ocean eddies and atmosphere storms makes the winter Kuroshio extension a hotspot for air-sea interactions. This second part investigates the regulation of vertical eddy heat transport QT in the winter Kuroshio extension mixed layer by different types of air-sea interactions, including the atmosphere synoptic forcing, eddy thermal feedback resulting from eddy-induced surface heat flux anomalies, and eddy current feedback from eddy current’s imprint on wind stress.Atmosphere synoptic forcing modulates intra-seasonal variation of QT by boosting its component contributed by the turbulent thermal wind balance during strong cooling events associated with intense winds. In addition, the magnitude of QT is influenced by the direction of synoptic wind stress primarily via , with the latter exhibiting enhancement both in the downfront- and upfront-wind forcing. Enhanced by the downfront-wind forcing is attributed to increased turbulent vertical viscosity and front intensity caused by the destabilizing wind-driven Ekman buoyancy flux, whereas interaction of uniform wind stress with smaller turbulent vertical viscosity at the front center than periphery (a so-called internal Ekman pumping) accounts for the increased in the upfront-wind forcing. The eddy thermal feedback reduces QT significantly through weakening the fronts. In contrast, the eddy current feedback exerts negligible influences on QT, although it weakens eddy kinetic energy (EKE) evidently. This is due to the much reduced effect of eddy current feedback in damping the fronts compared to EKE and also due to the compensation from Ekman pumping induced by the eddy current feedback.

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An Assessment of Representation of Oceanic Mesoscale Eddy‐Atmosphere Interaction in the Current Generation of General Circulation Models and Reanalyses

Cited by 20 publications

References 22 publications

FluxSat: Measuring the Ocean–Atmosphere Turbulent Exchange of Heat and Moisture from Space

FluxSat: Measuring the Ocean–Atmosphere Turbulent Exchange of Heat and Moisture from Space

Surface Heat Flux Induced by Mesoscale Eddies Cools the Kuroshio‐Oyashio Extension Region

On the Upper-Ocean Vertical Eddy Heat Transport in the Kuroshio Extension. Part II: Effects of Air–Sea Interactions

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