Tropical rainfall, Rossby waves and regional winter climate predictions
Skilful climate predictions of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation out to a few months ahead have recently been demonstrated, but the source of this predictability remains largely unknown. Here we investigate the role of the Tropics in this predictability. We show high level...
Published in: | Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society |
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.2910 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fqj.2910 https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/qj.2910 |
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crwiley:10.1002/qj.2910 2024-10-13T14:05:23+00:00 Tropical rainfall, Rossby waves and regional winter climate predictions Scaife, Adam A. Comer, Ruth E. Dunstone, Nick J. Knight, Jeff R. Smith, Doug M. MacLachlan, Craig Martin, Nicola Peterson, K. Andrew Rowlands, Dan Carroll, Edward B. Belcher, Stephen Slingo, Julia DECC/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme UK-China Research & Innovation Partnership Fund Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP) China Newton Fund EU SPECS project 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.2910 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fqj.2910 https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/qj.2910 en eng Wiley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society volume 143, issue 702, page 1-11 ISSN 0035-9009 1477-870X journal-article 2016 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.2910 2024-09-27T04:16:51Z Skilful climate predictions of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation out to a few months ahead have recently been demonstrated, but the source of this predictability remains largely unknown. Here we investigate the role of the Tropics in this predictability. We show high levels of skill in tropical rainfall predictions, particularly over the Pacific but also the Indian and Atlantic Ocean basins. Rainfall fluctuations in these regions are associated with clear signatures in tropical and extratropical atmospheric circulation that are approximately symmetric about the Equator in boreal winter. We show how these patterns can be explained as steady poleward propagating linear Rossby waves emanating from just a few key source regions. These wave source ‘hotspots’ become more or less active as tropical rainfall varies from winter to winter but they do not change position. Finally, we show that predicted tropical rainfall explains a highly significant fraction of the predicted year‐to‐year variation of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation Wiley Online Library Arctic Indian Pacific Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 143 702 1 11 |
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Wiley Online Library |
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crwiley |
language |
English |
description |
Skilful climate predictions of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation and Arctic Oscillation out to a few months ahead have recently been demonstrated, but the source of this predictability remains largely unknown. Here we investigate the role of the Tropics in this predictability. We show high levels of skill in tropical rainfall predictions, particularly over the Pacific but also the Indian and Atlantic Ocean basins. Rainfall fluctuations in these regions are associated with clear signatures in tropical and extratropical atmospheric circulation that are approximately symmetric about the Equator in boreal winter. We show how these patterns can be explained as steady poleward propagating linear Rossby waves emanating from just a few key source regions. These wave source ‘hotspots’ become more or less active as tropical rainfall varies from winter to winter but they do not change position. Finally, we show that predicted tropical rainfall explains a highly significant fraction of the predicted year‐to‐year variation of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation. |
author2 |
DECC/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme UK-China Research & Innovation Partnership Fund Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP) China Newton Fund EU SPECS project |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Scaife, Adam A. Comer, Ruth E. Dunstone, Nick J. Knight, Jeff R. Smith, Doug M. MacLachlan, Craig Martin, Nicola Peterson, K. Andrew Rowlands, Dan Carroll, Edward B. Belcher, Stephen Slingo, Julia |
spellingShingle |
Scaife, Adam A. Comer, Ruth E. Dunstone, Nick J. Knight, Jeff R. Smith, Doug M. MacLachlan, Craig Martin, Nicola Peterson, K. Andrew Rowlands, Dan Carroll, Edward B. Belcher, Stephen Slingo, Julia Tropical rainfall, Rossby waves and regional winter climate predictions |
author_facet |
Scaife, Adam A. Comer, Ruth E. Dunstone, Nick J. Knight, Jeff R. Smith, Doug M. MacLachlan, Craig Martin, Nicola Peterson, K. Andrew Rowlands, Dan Carroll, Edward B. Belcher, Stephen Slingo, Julia |
author_sort |
Scaife, Adam A. |
title |
Tropical rainfall, Rossby waves and regional winter climate predictions |
title_short |
Tropical rainfall, Rossby waves and regional winter climate predictions |
title_full |
Tropical rainfall, Rossby waves and regional winter climate predictions |
title_fullStr |
Tropical rainfall, Rossby waves and regional winter climate predictions |
title_full_unstemmed |
Tropical rainfall, Rossby waves and regional winter climate predictions |
title_sort |
tropical rainfall, rossby waves and regional winter climate predictions |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.2910 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fqj.2910 https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/qj.2910 |
geographic |
Arctic Indian Pacific |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Indian Pacific |
genre |
Arctic North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
genre_facet |
Arctic North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
op_source |
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society volume 143, issue 702, page 1-11 ISSN 0035-9009 1477-870X |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.2910 |
container_title |
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society |
container_volume |
143 |
container_issue |
702 |
container_start_page |
1 |
op_container_end_page |
11 |
_version_ |
1812811472155181056 |