Kinetic and available potential energy transport during the stratospheric sudden warming in January 2009

Abstract

The local features of transient kinetic energy and available potential energy were investigated using ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) Interim Reanalysis data for the stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) event of January 2009. The Western Europe high plays important roles in the propagation of the energy from North America to Eurasian. When the Western Europe high appeared and shifted eastward, energy conversions increased and energy propagated from North America to Eurasian as a form of interaction energy flow. The baroclinic conversion between transient-eddy kinetic energy (Ke) and transient-eddy available potential energy (Ae) and the horizontal advection of geopotential height were approximately one order of magnitude less than Ke and Ae generation terms. So, these terms were less important to this SSW event.