Changes in Atmospheric Blocking Circulations Linked with Winter Arctic Warming: A New Perspective
Abstract
Winter atmospheric blocking circulations such as Ural blocking (UB) have been recognized to play a crucial role in recent winter Eurasian cooling. Observational analyses performed here reveal that the winter warming in the Barents–Kara Seas (BKS) related to the recent decline of sea ice concentration (SIC) has been accompanied by a large increase in the mean duration of the UB events. A new energy dispersion index (EDI) is designed to help reveal the physics behind this association and show how the BKS warming can influence the mean duration of UB events. This EDI mainly reflects the role of the meridional potential vorticity (PV) gradient in the blocking persistence and it characterizes the changes in energy dispersion and nonlinearity strength of blocking. The meridional PV gradient combines the relative vorticity gradient (related to the nonuniform meridional shear of the mean zonal wind) and the mean zonal wind strength. It is revealed that the BKS warming leads to a significant lengthening of the UB duration because of weakened energy dispersion and intensified nonlinearity of the UB through reduced meridional PV gradient. Moreover, the duration of the UB is found to depend more strongly on the meridional PV gradient than the mean westerlymore »
- Authors:
-
- Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, New York
- School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1463768
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1541854
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012602
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Climate
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Journal of Climate Journal Volume: 31 Journal Issue: 18; Journal ID: ISSN 0894-8755
- Publisher:
- American Meteorological Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Arctic; Blocking; Dispersion
Citation Formats
Luo, Dehai, Chen, Xiaodan, Dai, Aiguo, and Simmonds, Ian. Changes in Atmospheric Blocking Circulations Linked with Winter Arctic Warming: A New Perspective. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0040.1.
Luo, Dehai, Chen, Xiaodan, Dai, Aiguo, & Simmonds, Ian. Changes in Atmospheric Blocking Circulations Linked with Winter Arctic Warming: A New Perspective. United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0040.1
Luo, Dehai, Chen, Xiaodan, Dai, Aiguo, and Simmonds, Ian. Sat .
"Changes in Atmospheric Blocking Circulations Linked with Winter Arctic Warming: A New Perspective". United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0040.1.
@article{osti_1463768,
title = {Changes in Atmospheric Blocking Circulations Linked with Winter Arctic Warming: A New Perspective},
author = {Luo, Dehai and Chen, Xiaodan and Dai, Aiguo and Simmonds, Ian},
abstractNote = {Winter atmospheric blocking circulations such as Ural blocking (UB) have been recognized to play a crucial role in recent winter Eurasian cooling. Observational analyses performed here reveal that the winter warming in the Barents–Kara Seas (BKS) related to the recent decline of sea ice concentration (SIC) has been accompanied by a large increase in the mean duration of the UB events. A new energy dispersion index (EDI) is designed to help reveal the physics behind this association and show how the BKS warming can influence the mean duration of UB events. This EDI mainly reflects the role of the meridional potential vorticity (PV) gradient in the blocking persistence and it characterizes the changes in energy dispersion and nonlinearity strength of blocking. The meridional PV gradient combines the relative vorticity gradient (related to the nonuniform meridional shear of the mean zonal wind) and the mean zonal wind strength. It is revealed that the BKS warming leads to a significant lengthening of the UB duration because of weakened energy dispersion and intensified nonlinearity of the UB through reduced meridional PV gradient. Moreover, the duration of the UB is found to depend more strongly on the meridional PV gradient than the mean westerly wind strength, although the meridional PV gradient includes the effect of mean westerly wind strength. Hence, the meridional PV gradient is a better indicator of the change in the blocking duration related to Arctic warming than the zonal wind strength index.},
doi = {10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0040.1},
journal = {Journal of Climate},
number = 18,
volume = 31,
place = {United States},
year = {Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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