On the relationship between synoptic wintertime atmospheric variability and path shifts in the Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio Extension
Citable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/3978As published
https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2690.1DOI
10.1175/2008JCLI2690.1Keyword
Synoptic-scale processes; Winter/cool season; Atmospheric circulation; Boundary currents; Interannual variabilityAbstract
Coherent, large-scale shifts in the paths of the Gulf Stream (GS) and the Kuroshio Extension (KE) occur on interannual to decadal time scales. Attention has usually been drawn to causes for these shifts in the overlying atmosphere, with some built-in delay of up to a few years resulting from propagation of wind-forced variability within the ocean. However, these shifts in the latitudes of separated western boundary currents can cause substantial changes in SST, which may influence the synoptic atmospheric variability with little or no time delay. Various measures of wintertime atmospheric variability in the synoptic band (2–8 days) are examined using a relatively new dataset for air–sea exchange [Objectively Analyzed Air–Sea Fluxes (OAFlux)] and subsurface temperature indices of the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio path that are insulated from direct air–sea exchange, and therefore are preferable to SST. Significant changes are found in the atmospheric variability following changes in the paths of these currents, sometimes in a local fashion such as meridional shifts in measures of local storm tracks, and sometimes in nonlocal, broad regions coincident with and downstream of the oceanic forcing. Differences between the North Pacific (KE) and North Atlantic (GS) may be partly related to the more zonal orientation of the KE and the stronger SST signals of the GS, but could also be due to differences in mean storm-track characteristics over the North Pacific and North Atlantic.
Description
Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2009. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 22 (2009): 3177–3192, doi:10.1175/2008JCLI2690.1.
Collections
Suggested Citation
Journal of Climate 22 (2009): 3177–3192Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Moist synoptic transport of CO2 along the mid-latitude storm track
Parazoo, N. C.; Denning, A. S.; Berry, J. A.; Wolf, Aaron S.; Randall, D. A.; Kawa, S. Randolph; Pauluis, O.; Doney, Scott C. (American Geophysical Union, 2011-05-12)Atmospheric mixing ratios of CO2 are strongly seasonal in the Arctic due to mid-latitude transport. Here we analyze the seasonal influence of moist synoptic storms by diagnosing CO2 transport from a global model on moist ... -
Moored observations of synoptic and seasonal variability in the East Greenland Coastal Current
Harden, Benjamin E.; Straneo, Fiamma; Sutherland, David A. (John Wiley & Sons, 2014-12-23)We present a year-round assessment of the hydrographic variability within the East Greenland Coastal Current on the Greenland shelf from five synoptic crossings and 4 years of moored hydrographic data. From the five synoptic ... -
A multivariate estimate of the cold season atmospheric response to North Pacific SST variability
Revelard, Adèle; Frankignoul, Claude; Kwon, Young-Oh (American Meteorological Society, 2018-03-12)The Generalized Equilibrium Feedback Analysis (GEFA) is used to distinguish the influence of the Oyashio Extension (OE) and the Kuroshio Extension (KE) variability on the atmosphere from 1979 to 2014 from that of the main ...