GCM response of northern winter stationary waves and storm tracks to increasing amounts of carbon dioxide

Journal Article · Fri Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1993 · Journal of Climate; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(1993)006<1859:GRONWS>2.0.CO;2· OSTI ID:5584118

Stephenson, D B; Held, I M ^[1]

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1. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)

The response of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) coupled ocean-atmosphere R15, 9-level GCM to gradually increasing CO[sub 2] amounts is analyzed with emphasis on the changes in the stationary waves and storm tracks in the Northern Hemisphere wintertime troposphere. A large part of the change is described by an equivalent-barotropic stationary wave with a high over eastern Canada and a low over southern Alaska. Consistent with this, the Atlantic jet weakens near the North American coast. Perpetual winter runs of an R15, nine-level atmospheric GCM with sea surface temperature, sea ice thickness, and soil moisture values prescribed from the coupled GCM results are able to reproduce the coupled model's response qualitatively. Consistent with the weakened baroclinicity associated with the stationary wave change, the Atlantic storm track weakens with increasing CO[sub 2] concentrations while the Pacific storm track does not change in strength substantially. An R15, nine-level atmospheric model linearized about the zonal time-mean state is used to analyze the contributions to the stationary wave response. With mountains, diabatic heating, and transient forcings the linear model gives a stationary wave change in qualitative agreement with the change seen in the coupled and perpetual models. Transients and diabatic heating appear to be the major forcing terms, while changes in zonal-mean basic state and topographic forcing play only a small role. A substantial part of the diabatic response is due to changes in tropical latent heating. 25 refs., 36 figs.

• OSTI ID: 5584118
• Journal Information: Journal of Climate; (United States), Vol. 6:10; ISSN 0894-8755
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION
SEASONAL VARIATIONS
CARBON DIOXIDE
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
STORMS
MOTION
ALASKA
CANADA
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
HEATING
ICE
MOUNTAINS
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
THICKNESS
TROPOSPHERE
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CARBON OXIDES
CHALCOGENIDES
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
DIMENSIONS
DISASTERS
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
EARTH PLANET
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
NORTH AMERICA
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PLANETS
USA
VARIATIONS
540110*