Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks Research Articles

Interannual Modulation of Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks by the QBO

AbstractStorm tracks, defined as the preferred regions of extratropical synoptic‐scale disturbances, have remarkable impacts on global weather and climate systems. Causes of interannual storm track variation have been investigated mostly from a troposphere perspective. As shown in this study, Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks are significantly modulated by the tropical stratosphere through the quasi‐biennial oscillation (QBO). The North Pacific storm track shifts poleward during the easterly QBO winters associated with a dipole change in the eddy refraction and baroclinicity. The North Atlantic storm track varies vertically with a downward shrinking (upward expansion) in easterly (westerly) QBO winters associated with the change of the tropopause height. These results not only fill the knowledge gap of QBO‐storm track relationship but also suggest a potential route to improve the seasonal prediction of extratropical storm activities owing to the high predictability of the QBO.

The Imprint of Strong-Storm Tracks on Winter Weather in North America

Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks and their relation to winter weather are investigated using NCEP CFSR data. Storm tracks are described by isentropic PV maxima within a Lagrangian framework; these correspond well with those described in previous studies. The current diagnostics focus on strong-storm tracks, which comprise storms that achieve a maximum PV exceeding the mean value by one standard deviation. Large increases in diabatic heating related to deep convection occur where the storm tracks are most intense. The cyclogenesis pattern shows that strong storms generally develop on the upstream sectors of the tracks. Intensification happens toward the eastern North Pacific and all across the North Atlantic Ocean, where enhanced storm-track-related weather is found. In this study, the relation of storm tracks to near-surface winds and precipitation is evaluated. The largest increases in storm-track-related winds are found where strong storms tend to develop and intensify, while storm precipitation is enhanced in areas where the storm tracks have their highest intensity. Strong storms represent about 16% of all storms but contribute 30%–50% of the storm precipitation in the storm-track regions. Both strong-storm-related winds and precipitation are prone to cause storm-related losses in the eastern U.S. and North American coasts. Over the oceans, maritime operations are expected to be most vulnerable to damage offshore of the U.S. coasts. Despite making up a small fraction of all storms, the strong-storm tracks have a significant imprint on winter weather in North America potentially leading to structural and economic loss.

Changes in Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks under the Background of Arctic Amplification

Abstract An interdecadal weakening in the North Atlantic storm track (NAST) and a poleward shift of the North Pacific storm track (NPST) are found during October–March for the period 1979–2015. A significant warming of surface air temperature (Ts) over northeastern North America and a La Niña–like change in the North Pacific under the background of Arctic amplification are found to be the contributors to the observed changes in the NAST and the NPST, respectively, via modulation of local baroclinicity. The interdecadal change in baroclinic energy conversion is consistent with changes in storm tracks with an energy loss from eddies to mean flow over the North Atlantic and an energy gain over the North Pacific. The analysis of simulations from the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble project, although with some biases in storm-track and Ts simulations, supports the observed relationship between the NAST and Ts over northeastern North America, as well as the link between the NPST and El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The near-future projections of Ts and storm tracks are characterized by a warmer planet under the influence of increasing greenhouse gases and a significant weakening of both the NAST and the NPST. The potential role of the NAST in redistributing changes in Ts over the surrounding regions is also examined. The anomalous equatorward moisture flux associated with the weakening trend of the NAST would enhance the warming over its upstream region and hinder the warming over its downstream region via modulation of the downward infrared radiation.

Centennial trends in Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks over the twentieth century

In this study changes in Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks during the twentieth century are investigated based on the individual 56 ensemble members of the twentieth century re-analysis dataset. It is found that the twentieth century trends in storm-track activities exhibit large discrepancies between the upper and lower troposphere. In the upper troposphere, a substantial intensification is identified at the poleward and downstream regions of the North Pacific and North Atlantic storm-track activities, indicating a large northeastward expansion of storm tracks in the late twentieth century. However, in the lower troposphere the synoptic eddy activities, especially in terms of the eddy kinetic energy and meridional eddy heat flux, tend to be significantly weakened over the high latitudes of central-western North Pacific and the upstream regions of the North Atlantic storm tracks. Further inspections find that such strengthening (weakening) of storm tracks in the upper (lower) troposphere are attributed mainly to an increase (decrease) of baroclinic instability, which is predominantly determined by the meridional temperature gradient changes. Moreover, from a local energetic perspective, the baroclinic generation and barotropic damping of the synoptic eddies are found to be substantially enhanced at the upstream and downstream regions of the two storm tracks in the upper troposphere, respectively, while in the lower troposphere the baroclinic energy conversion to eddies is generally decreased.

Impacts of global warming on Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks in the CMIP5 model suite

AbstractA key question in assessing how global warming may affect climate is how it may impact day‐to‐day weather. To help answer this question, we evaluate the frequency and intensity of northern hemisphere storm tracks in the National Center for Climate Prediction reanalysis I dataset, and the historical, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 climate scenarios featured in the CMIP5 simulations. We found that a warmer climate resulted in a general decrease in storm frequency in midlatitudes, especially in RCP8.5. In contrast, frequency trends in the reanalysis data reflected an increase in the North Pacific consistent with a shift towards a positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation and more frequent El Niño events post mid‐1970s. An examination of frequency and intensity trends in the active storm track regions of the North Pacific and North Atlantic showed that a significant decrease in storm track frequency was evident for RCP8.5. In contrast, intensity trends were dichotomous, with RCP8.5 exhibiting an increase in intensity in the North Atlantic active storm track region and a decrease in intensity in the North Pacific active storm track region. Poleward of these regions, a significant decrease in storm intensity in the North Atlantic and a significant increase in intensity in the North Pacific in RCP8.5 occurred. We also examined the intensity distribution of storms in the active storm track regions of the North Atlantic and North Pacific and determined that the models produced weaker storms with reduced variability relative to reanalysis data regardless of external climate forcing.

Northern hemisphere winter storm tracks of the Eemian interglacial and the last glacial inception

Abstract. Climate simulations of the Eemian interglacial and the last glacial inception have been performed by forcing a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model with insolation patterns of these periods. The parameters of the Earth's orbit have been set to conditions of 125 000 and 115 000 years before present (yr BP). Compared to today, these dates represent periods with enhanced and weakened seasonality of insolation in the northern hemisphere. Here we analyse the simulated change in northern hemisphere winter storm tracks. The change in the orbital configuration has a strong impact on the meridional temperature gradients and therefore on strength and location of the storm tracks. The North Atlantic storm track is strengthened, shifted northward and extends further to the east in the simulation for the Eemian at 125 kyr BP. As one consequence, the northern parts of Europe experience an increase in winter precipitation. The frequency of winter storm days increases over large parts of the North Atlantic including the British Isles and the coastal zones of north-western Europe. Opposite but weaker changes in storm track activity are simulated for 115 kyr BP.

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.

An Idealized Nonlinear Model of the Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks

Abstract In this paper, a nonlinear dry model, forced by fixed radiative forcing alone, has been constructed to simulate the Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks. A procedure has been devised to iterate the radiative equilibrium temperature profile such that at the end of the iterations the model climate closely resembles the desired target climate. This iterative approach is applied to simulate the climatological storm tracks in January. It is found that, when the three-dimensional temperature distribution in the model resembles the observed distribution, the model storm tracks are much too weak. It is hypothesized that this is due to the fact that eddy development is suppressed in a dry atmosphere, owing to the lack of latent heat release in the ascending warm air. To obtain storm tracks with realistic amplitudes, the static stability of the target climate is reduced to simulate the enhancement in baroclinic energy conversion due to latent heat release. With this modification, the storm tracks in the model simulation closely resemble those observed except that the strength of the Atlantic storm track is slightly weaker than observed. The model, when used as a forecast model, also gives high-quality forecasts of the evolution of observed eddies. The iterative approach is applied to force the model to simulate climate anomalies associated with ENSO and the interannual variations of the winter Pacific jet stream/storm tracks. The results show that the model not only succeeds in simulating the climatology of storm tracks, but also produces realistic simulations of storm track anomalies when the model climate is forced to resemble observed climate anomalies. An extended run of the control experiment is conducted to generate monthly mean flow and storm track statistics. These statistics are used to build a linear statistical model relating storm track anomalies to mean flow anomalies. This model performs well when used to hindcast observed storm track anomalies based on observed mean flow anomalies, showing that the storm track/mean flow covariability in the model is realistic and that storm track distribution is not sensitive to the exact form of the applied forcings.

Are the Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks Significantly Correlated?

Abstract In this study, the correlation between the Northern Hemisphere winter Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks is examined using the NCEP–NCAR reanalysis and the 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40), as well as unassimilated aircraft observations. By examining month-to-month variability in the 250-hPa meridional velocity variance, the correlation between the two storm track peaks is found to be as high as 0.5 during the winters between 1975/76 and 1998/99. Here, it is shown that the correlation between the two storm tracks can be clearly detected from the aircraft data. Further analyses of the reanalysis data show that the correlation can also be seen in other eddy variance and covariance statistics, including the poleward heat flux at the 700-hPa level. The correlation between the two storm tracks, as seen in both reanalysis datasets, is shown to be much weaker during the period 1957/58–1971/72, suggesting a possible regime transition from largely uncorrelated storm tracks to highly correlated storm tracks during the 1970s. However, during this earlier period, the number of aircraft observations is insufficient to verify the low correlation seen in the reanalyses. Thus, low biases in the reanalyses during the earlier period cannot be ruled out. An ensemble of four GCM simulations performed using the GFDL GCM forced by global observed SST variations between 1950 and 1995 has also been examined. The correlation between the two storm tracks in the GCM simulations is much lower (0.18) than that observed, even if the analysis is restricted to the GCM simulations from the period 1975/76–1994/95. A Monte Carlo test shows that the observed correlation and the GCM correlation are statistically distinct at the 1% level. Correlations between the Southern Hemisphere summer Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks have also been examined based on the reanalyses datasets. The results suggest that the amplitude of the SH summer Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks are not significantly correlated, showing that seeding of the Atlantic storm track by the Pacific storm track does not necessarily lead to significant correlations between the two storm tracks.

Sensitivity of Feature-Based Analysis Methods of Storm Tracks to the Form of Background Field Removal

Abstract For the tracking of extrema associated with weather systems to be applied to a broad range of fields it is necessary to remove a background field that represents the slowly varying, large spatial scales. The sensitivity of the tracking analysis to the form of background field removed is explored for the Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks for three contrasting fields from an integration of the U.K. Met Office's (UKMO) Hadley Centre Climate Model (HadAM3). Several methods are explored for the removal of a background field from the simple subtraction of the climatology, to the more sophisticated removal of the planetary scales. Two temporal filters are also considered in the form of a 2–6-day Lanczos filter and a 20-day high-pass Fourier filter. The analysis indicates that the simple subtraction of the climatology tends to change the nature of the systems to the extent that there is a redistribution of the systems relative to the climatological background resulting in very similar statistical d...

Interdecadal Variations in Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Track Intensity

Abstract In this paper, the interannual variations in the Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks have been examined based on 51 winters (December–January–February) of NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data. The leading empirical orthogonal function (EOF) corresponds to the simultaneous strengthening/weakening of both the Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks. Interannual and month-to-month variations in the Pacific and Atlantic storm tracks are found to be significantly correlated. The principal component associated with the leading hemispheric EOF exhibits pronounced interdecadal variability. There appears to be a transition during the early 1970s from a weak storm track state prior to 1972/73 to a strong storm track state subsequently. Decadal mean storm track intensity during the 1990s is about 30% stronger than that during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The relationship between variations in storm track intensity and low-frequency (seasonal mean) flow anomalies has also been examined. It is shown that storm track va...

New Perspectives on the Northern Hemisphere Winter Storm Tracks

Abstract The aim of this paper is to explore the use of both an Eulerian and system-centered method of storm track diagnosis applied to a wide range of meteorological fields at multiple levels to provide a range of perspectives on the Northern Hemisphere winter transient motions and to give new insight into the storm track organization and behavior. The data used are primarily from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts reanalyses project extended with operational analyses to the period 1979–2000. This is supplemented by data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and Goddard Earth Observing System 1 reanalyses. The range of fields explored include the usual mean sea level pressure and the lower- and upper-tropospheric height, meridional wind, vorticity, and temperature, as well as the potential vorticity (PV) on a 330-K isentropic surface (PV330) and potential temperature on a PV = 2 PVU surface (θPV2). As well as reporting the primary analysis based on feature tracking, t...

Storm tracks in a warmer climate: sensitivity studies with a simplified global circulation model

A simplified global circulation model is used to analyse a greenhouse warming experiment simulated by a comprehensive general circulation model. The given GCM scenario and control climates are assimilated by the simplified model using a dynamical relaxation technique. Two sets of sensitivity experiments investigate the influence of upper and lower tropospheric changes in baroclinicity on the Northern Hemisphere winter storm tracks. The results show that the three-dimensional structure of both the background flow and the changes in baroclinicity are important for the behaviour of mid-latitude eddy activity in relation to modifications of the baroclinicity. In general, the mid-latitude eddy activity is more sensitive to lower than to upper level changes in baroclinicity. The results further suggest that the simulated storm track changes in the GCM scenario are dominated by local modes of baroclinic instability.