Storm-Track Response to SST Fronts in the Northwestern Pacific Region in an AGCM

AbstractThe storm-track response to sea surface temperature (SST) fronts in the northwestern Pacific region is investigated using an atmospheric general circulation model with a 50-km horizontal resolution. The following two experiments are conducted: one with 0.25° daily SST data (CNTL) and the other with smoothed SSTs over an area covering SST fronts associated with the Kuroshio, the Kuroshio Extension, the Oyashio, and the subpolar front (SMTHK). The storm track estimated from the local deepening rate of surface pressure (LDR) exhibits a prominent peak in this region in CNTL in January, whereas the storm-track peak weakens and moves eastward in SMTHK. Storm-track differences between CNTL and SMTHK are only found in explosive deepening events with LDR larger than 1 hPa h−1. A diagnostic equation of LDR suggests that latent heat release associated with large-scale condensation contributes to the storm-track enhancement. The SST fronts also affect the large-scale atmospheric circulation over the northeast...

[1]  Young-Oh Kwon,et al.  Investigating the Local Atmospheric Response to a Realistic Shift in the Oyashio Sea Surface Temperature Front , 2015 .

[2]  Brian F. Farrell,et al.  A Simple Approximate Result for the Maximum Growth Rate of Baroclinic Instabilities , 1980 .

[3]  F. Sanders,et al.  Synoptic-Dynamic Climatology of the “Bomb” , 1980 .

[4]  Y. Kaspi,et al.  The Poleward Motion of Extratropical Cyclones from a Potential Vorticity Tendency Analysis , 2016 .

[5]  Dominant Anomaly Patterns in the Near-Surface Baroclinicity and Accompanying Anomalies in the Atmosphere and Oceans. Part I: North Atlantic Basin , 2009 .

[6]  B. Taguchi,et al.  Baiu Rainband Termination in Atmospheric and Coupled Atmosphere–Ocean Models , 2013 .

[7]  S. Iizuka,et al.  Influence of the Monsoon Variability and Sea Surface Temperature Front on the Explosive Cyclone Activity in the Vicinity of Japan during Northern Winter , 2013 .

[8]  H. Nakamura,et al.  Dependence of the climatological axial latitudes of the tropospheric westerlies and storm tracks on the latitude of an extratropical oceanic front , 2012 .

[9]  Wataru Ohfuchi,et al.  An improved PDF cloud scheme for climate simulations , 2010 .

[10]  Hisashi Nakamura,et al.  10-km Mesh Meso-scale Resolving Simulations of the Global Atmosphere on the Earth Simulator - Preliminary Outcomes of AFES (AGCM for the Earth Simulator) - , 2004 .

[11]  Jian Lu,et al.  High Resolution Model Intercomparison Project (HighResMIP v1.0) for CMIP6 , 2016 .

[12]  Hisashi Nakamura,et al.  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* , 2009 .

[13]  Shoshiro Minobe,et al.  Influence of the Gulf Stream on the troposphere , 2008, Nature.

[14]  H. Nakamura,et al.  Arctic summer storm track in CMIP3/5 climate models , 2015, Climate Dynamics.

[15]  Frank O. Bryan,et al.  Storm track response to ocean fronts in a global high-resolution climate model , 2014, Climate Dynamics.

[16]  Wonsun Park,et al.  Atmospheric response to the North Pacific enabled by daily sea surface temperature variability , 2015 .

[17]  W. Robinson,et al.  North Atlantic Storm-Track Sensitivity to Warming Increases with Model Resolution , 2015 .

[18]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  Daily High-Resolution-Blended Analyses for Sea Surface Temperature , 2007 .

[19]  R. Kawamura,et al.  Influence of wintertime large-scale circulation on the explosively developing cyclones over the western North Pacific and their downstream effects , 2009 .

[20]  H. Nakamura,et al.  A formulation of a wave‐activity flux for stationary Rossby waves on a zonally varying basic flow , 1997 .

[21]  Young-Oh Kwon,et al.  Influence of the meridional shifts of the Kuroshio and the Oyashio Extensions on the atmospheric circulation , 2011 .

[22]  F. Zwiers,et al.  How well do CMIP5 climate models reproduce explosive cyclones in the extratropics of the Northern Hemisphere? , 2016, Climate Dynamics.

[23]  M. Blackburn,et al.  Storm track sensitivity to sea surface temperature resolution in a regional atmosphere model , 2010 .

[24]  Xiaopei Lin,et al.  Distant Influence of Kuroshio Eddies on North Pacific Weather Patterns? , 2015, Scientific Reports.

[25]  Akira Kuwano-Yoshida,et al.  Numerical Study of Explosively Developing Extratropical Cyclones in the Northwestern Pacific Region , 2008 .

[26]  H. Nakamura,et al.  Significance of a Midlatitude SST Frontal Zone in the Formation of a Storm Track and an Eddy-Driven Westerly Jet* , 2010 .

[27]  H. Nakamura,et al.  On the Significance of the Sensible Heat Supply from the Ocean in the Maintenance of the Mean Baroclinicity along Storm Tracks , 2011 .

[28]  J. Booth,et al.  Sensitivity of Midlatitude Storm Intensification to Perturbations in the Sea Surface Temperature near the Gulf Stream , 2012 .

[29]  B. Taguchi,et al.  Seasonal evolutions of atmospheric response to decadal SST anomalies in the North Pacific subarctic frontal zone: Observations and a coupled model simulation , 2012 .

[30]  Y. Asuma,et al.  Structures and Environment of Explosively Developing Extratropical Cyclones in the Northwestern Pacific Region , 2004 .

[31]  Shoshiro Minobe,et al.  The influence of the Gulf Stream on wintertime European blocking , 2016, Climate Dynamics.

[32]  L. Shaffrey,et al.  Deconstructing the climate change response of the Northern Hemisphere wintertime storm tracks , 2015, Climate Dynamics.

[33]  Rhys Parfitt,et al.  The atmospheric frontal response to SST perturbations in the Gulf Stream region , 2016 .

[34]  X. Zou,et al.  A Planetary-Scale to Mesoscale Perspective of the Life Cycles of Extratropical Cyclones: The Bridge between Theory and Observations , 1999 .

[35]  H. Nakamura,et al.  Observed Associations Among Storm Tracks, Jet Streams and Midlatitude Oceanic Fronts , 2013 .

[36]  C. O’Reilly,et al.  The response of the Pacific storm track and atmospheric circulation to Kuroshio Extension variability , 2015 .

[37]  P. Knippertz,et al.  Diagnosing the influence of diabatic processes on the explosive deepening of extratropical cyclones , 2012 .

[38]  H. Nakamura.  Midwinter Suppression of Baroclinic Wave Activity in the Pacific , 1992 .

[39]  S. Kobayashi,et al.  The JRA-25 Reanalysis , 2007 .

[40]  Masaya Kato,et al.  Influential Role of Moisture Supply from the Kuroshio/Kuroshio Extension in the Rapid Development of an Extratropical Cyclone , 2015 .

[41]  Intermodel variations in projected precipitation change over the North Atlantic: Sea surface temperature effect , 2015 .

[42]  Gary M. Lackmann,et al.  The Importance of Resolving Mesoscale Latent Heating in the North Atlantic Storm Track , 2013 .

[43]  Jeffrey H. Yin,et al.  A consistent poleward shift of the storm tracks in simulations of 21st century climate , 2005 .

[44]  A. Kuwano-Yoshida.  Using the Local Deepening Rate to Indicate Extratropical Cyclone Activity , 2014 .

[45]  Wataru Ohfuchi,et al.  Description of AFES 2: Improvements for High-Resolution and Coupled Simulations , 2008 .

[46]  Shoshiro Minobe,et al.  Precipitation Response to the Gulf Stream in an Atmospheric GCM , 2010 .

[47]  Toru Nozawa,et al.  MIROC4h—A New High-Resolution Atmosphere-Ocean Coupled General Circulation Model , 2012 .