Influences of the Kuroshio/Oyashio Extensions on Air-Sea Heat Exchanges and Storm-Track Activity as Revealed in Regional Atmospheric Model Simulations for the 2003/04 Cold Season*

Abstract Influences of oceanic fronts in the Kuroshio and Oyashio Extension (KOE) region on the overlying atmosphere are investigated by comparing a pair of atmospheric regional model hindcast experiments for the 2003/04 cold season, one with the observed finescale frontal structures in sea surface temperature (SST) prescribed at the model lower boundary and the other with an artificially smoothed SST distribution. The comparison reveals the locally enhanced meridional gradient of turbulent fluxes of heat and moisture and surface air temperature (SAT) across the oceanic frontal zone, which favors the storm-track development both in winter and spring. Distinct seasonal dependency is found, however, in how dominantly the storm-track activity influences the time-mean distribution of the heat and moisture supply from the ocean. In spring the mean surface sensible heat flux (SHF) is upward (downward) on the warmer (cooler) side of the subarctic SST front. This sharp cross-frontal contrast is a manifestation of...

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