Drivers of projected change in arctic moist static energy transport

Skific, Natasa; Francis, Jennifer A.

doi:10.1002/jgrd.50292

Cited by 30 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…For example, the atmospheric fluxes of sensible and latent heat into the Arctic basin that are required to offset the radiative imbalance are mostly associated with cyclones (Jakobson and Vihma, 2010;Skific and Francis, 2013;Woods et al, 2013). The present analysis is also very timely in that we are now in a period of rapid change in the Arctic sea ice and many other parameters (Screen and Simmonds, 2010;Inoue et al, 2011;Jackson et al, 2011;Cavalieri and Parkinson, 2012;Comiso, 2012;Duarte et al, 2012;Livina and Lenton, 2013;Simmonds, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

A comparison of tracking methods for extreme cyclones in the Arctic basin

Simmonds

Rudeva

2014

Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography

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A B S T R A C T Dramatic climate changes have occurred in recent decades over the Arctic region, and very noticeably in nearsurface warming and reductions in sea ice extent. In a climatological sense, Arctic cyclone behaviour is linked to the distributions of lower troposphere temperature and sea ice, and hence the monitoring of storms can be seen as an important component of the analysis of Arctic climate. The analysis of cyclone behaviour, however, is not without ambiguity, and different cyclone identification algorithms can lead to divergent conclusions. Here we analyse a subset of Arctic cyclones with 10 state-of-the-art cyclone identification schemes applied to the ERA-Interim reanalysis. The subset is comprised of the five most intense (defined in terms of central pressure) Arctic cyclones for each of the 12 calendar months over the 30-yr period from 1 January 1979 to 31 March 2009. There is a considerable difference between the central pressures diagnosed by the algorithms of typically 5Á10 hPa. By contrast, there is substantial agreement as to the location of the centre of these extreme storms. The cyclone tracking algorithms also display some differences in the evolution and life cycle of these storms, while overall finding them to be quite long-lived. For all but six of the 60 storms an intense tropopause polar vortex is identified within 555 km of the surface system. The results presented here highlight some significant differences between the outputs of the algorithms, and hence point to the value using multiple identification schemes in the study of cyclone behaviour. Overall, however, the algorithms reached a very robust consensus on most aspects of the behaviour of these very extreme cyclones in the Arctic basin.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

A comparison of tracking methods for extreme cyclones in the Arctic basin

Simmonds

Rudeva

2014

Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography

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“…Climate models generally agree on a large cancellation between the latent and dry‐static transport change in response to a forcing (Manabe and Bryan, ; Hwang et al . ; Skific and Francis, ; Koenigk et al . ).…”

Section: Energy Transport Change and Arctic Warmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This has led to the conclusion that the transport does not contribute to, but rather opposes, Arctic amplification (Kay et al . ; Skific and Francis, ). Here we take a new approach and split the transport into planetary and synoptic‐scale waves.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Arctic amplification enhanced by latent energy transport of atmospheric planetary waves

Graversen

Burtu

2016

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

132

159

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The atmospheric northward energy transport plays a crucial role for the Arctic climate; this transport brings to the Arctic an amount of energy comparable to that provided directly by the sun. The transport is accomplished by atmospheric waves-for instance large-scale planetary waves and meso-scale cyclones-and the zonal-mean circulation. These different components of the energy transport impact the Arctic climate differently.A split of the transport into stationary and transient waves constitutes a traditional way of decomposing the transport. However this procedure does not take into account the transport accomplished separately by the planetary and synoptic-scale waves. Here a Fourier decomposition is applied, which decomposes the transport with respect to zonal wave numbers. Reanalysis and model data reveal that the planetary waves impact Arctic temperatures much more than do synoptic-scale waves. In addition the latent transport by these waves affects the Arctic climate more than does the dry-static part. Finally, the EC-Earth model suggests that changes of the energy transport over the twentyfirst century will contribute to Arctic warming, despite the fact that in this model the total energy transport to the Arctic will decrease. This apparent contradictory result is due to the cooling induced by a decrease of the dry-static transport by planetary waves being more than compensated for by a warming caused by the latent counterpart.

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“…Focusing only on the zonal-mean transport, studies show that thermodynamic effects contribute more than dynamics to this increased transport [e.g., Skific et al, 2009aSkific et al, , 2009bSkific and Francis, 2013]. However, the moisture transport into the Arctic has substantial zonal variations, being strongest in several preferred regions .…”

Section: Transient Moisture Transport Into the Arctic (Across 60mentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme moisture transport into the Arctic linked to Rossby wave breaking

2015

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The transport of moisture into the Arctic is tightly connected to midlatitude dynamics. We show that the bulk of the transient poleward moisture transport across 60°N is driven by extreme transport (fluxes greater than the 90th percentile) events. We demonstrate that these events are closely related to the two types of Rossby wave breaking (RWB)—anticyclonic wave breaking (AWB) and cyclonic wave breaking (CWB). Using a RWB tracking algorithm, we determine that RWB can account for approximately 68% of the extreme poleward moisture transport by transients across 60°N in winter and 56% in summer. Additional analysis suggests that the seasonality of such RWB‐related moisture transport is determined approximately equally by (1) the magnitude of transport (which is largely a function of the background moisture gradient) and (2) the frequency of RWB occurrence. The seasonality of RWB occurrence is, in turn, tied to the seasonal variation of the latitude of the jet streams—AWB‐related (CWB‐related) transport occurs more frequently when the jet is shifted poleward (equatorward). The interannual variability of RWB‐related transport across 60°N in winter is shown to be strongly influenced by climate variability captured by the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). In the positive (negative) phase of ENSO, AWB transports less (more) moisture through the Bering Strait and CWB transports more (less) through western Canada. In the positive (negative) phase of the NAO, AWB transports more (less) moisture through the Norwegian Sea and CWB transports less (more) along the west coast of Greenland. These results highlight that low‐frequency climate variability outside of the polar regions can influence the Arctic water vapor by modulating extreme synoptic transport events.

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Drivers of projected change in arctic moist static energy transport

Cited by 30 publications

References 49 publications

A comparison of tracking methods for extreme cyclones in the Arctic basin

A comparison of tracking methods for extreme cyclones in the Arctic basin

Arctic amplification enhanced by latent energy transport of atmospheric planetary waves

Extreme moisture transport into the Arctic linked to Rossby wave breaking

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