Low-frequency variability of polar atmosphere due to blocking formations: A numerical experiment of blocking

Technical Report · Sun Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:7161582

Tanaka, H L

Arctic climate in winter depends on occurrence of large-scale atmospheric blocking and amplification of planetary waves. Understanding the development of blocking formations is an important research subject in polar regions as well as in middle latitudes for time scales of a month to a season. This study carried out nonlinear numerical simulations of amplification of low-frequency planetary waves and the concurrent development of blocking. The simulations were conducted using a barotropic spectral model derived from three-dimensional spectral primitive equations with a basis of vertical structure functions and Hough harmonics. The model is truncated to include only barotropic Rossby components of the atmosphere with simple physics including biharmonic diffusion, topographic forcing, baroclinic instability, and zonal surface stress. The authors find that these four physical processes are sufficient to produce a realistic and persistent dipole blocking with a sharp transition from zonal to meridional flows on a sphere. The simulations confirmed an amplification of the meridional dipole mode due to the up-scale energy cascade from synoptic disturbances under an environment of persistent wavenumber 2. The energy supply from synoptic disturbances contributes to the sharp transition from zonal to meridional flows.

• Research Organization: Alaska Univ., Fairbanks, AK (United States). Geophysical Inst.
• OSTI ID: 7161582
• Report Number(s): AD-P-007283/5/XAB
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540110*
ARCTIC REGIONS
CLIMATES
CLIMATIC CHANGE
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
FORECASTING
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
INSTABILITY
POLAR REGIONS
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
SIMULATION
VARIATIONS