The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing
The role of Rossby wave breaking (RWB) is explored in the transient response of an atmospheric general circulation model to boundary forcing by sea ice anomalies related to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). When the NCAR Community Climate Model, version 3, was forced by an exaggerated sea ice ex...
Published in: | Journal of Climate |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
eScholarship, University of California
2010
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8gr4622s |
id |
ftcdlib:qt8gr4622s |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftcdlib:qt8gr4622s 2023-05-15T17:30:34+02:00 The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing Strong, Courtenay Magnusdottir, Gudrun 1269 - 1276 2010-03-01 application/pdf http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8gr4622s english eng eScholarship, University of California qt8gr4622s http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8gr4622s Attribution (CC BY): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ CC-BY Strong, Courtenay; & Magnusdottir, Gudrun. (2010). The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing. Journal of Climate, 23(6), 1269 - 1276. doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2676.1. UC Irvine: Department of Earth System Science, UCI. Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8gr4622s Physical Sciences and Mathematics sea-ice anomalies midlatitude sst anomalies winter circulation NAO oscillation dependence scale model CCM3 article 2010 ftcdlib https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JCLI2676.1 2016-04-02T18:48:46Z The role of Rossby wave breaking (RWB) is explored in the transient response of an atmospheric general circulation model to boundary forcing by sea ice anomalies related to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). When the NCAR Community Climate Model, version 3, was forced by an exaggerated sea ice extent anomaly corresponding to one arising from a positive NAO, a localized baroclinic response developed and evolved into a larger-scale equivalent barotropic pattern resembling the negative polarity of the NAO. The initial baroclinic response shifted the phase speeds of the dominant eddies away from a critical value equal to the background zonal flow speed, resulting in significant changes in the spatial distribution of RWB. The forcing of the background zonal flow by the changes in RWB accounts for 88% of the temporal pattern of the response and 80% of the spatial pattern of the zonally averaged response. Although results here focus on one experiment, this “RWB critical line mechanism” appears to be relevant to understanding the equilibrium response in a broad class of boundary forcing experiments given increasingly clear connections among the northern annular mode, jet latitude shifts, and RWB. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation Sea ice University of California: eScholarship Journal of Climate 23 6 1269 1276 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of California: eScholarship |
op_collection_id |
ftcdlib |
language |
English |
topic |
Physical Sciences and Mathematics sea-ice anomalies midlatitude sst anomalies winter circulation NAO oscillation dependence scale model CCM3 |
spellingShingle |
Physical Sciences and Mathematics sea-ice anomalies midlatitude sst anomalies winter circulation NAO oscillation dependence scale model CCM3 Strong, Courtenay Magnusdottir, Gudrun The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing |
topic_facet |
Physical Sciences and Mathematics sea-ice anomalies midlatitude sst anomalies winter circulation NAO oscillation dependence scale model CCM3 |
description |
The role of Rossby wave breaking (RWB) is explored in the transient response of an atmospheric general circulation model to boundary forcing by sea ice anomalies related to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). When the NCAR Community Climate Model, version 3, was forced by an exaggerated sea ice extent anomaly corresponding to one arising from a positive NAO, a localized baroclinic response developed and evolved into a larger-scale equivalent barotropic pattern resembling the negative polarity of the NAO. The initial baroclinic response shifted the phase speeds of the dominant eddies away from a critical value equal to the background zonal flow speed, resulting in significant changes in the spatial distribution of RWB. The forcing of the background zonal flow by the changes in RWB accounts for 88% of the temporal pattern of the response and 80% of the spatial pattern of the zonally averaged response. Although results here focus on one experiment, this “RWB critical line mechanism” appears to be relevant to understanding the equilibrium response in a broad class of boundary forcing experiments given increasingly clear connections among the northern annular mode, jet latitude shifts, and RWB. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Strong, Courtenay Magnusdottir, Gudrun |
author_facet |
Strong, Courtenay Magnusdottir, Gudrun |
author_sort |
Strong, Courtenay |
title |
The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing |
title_short |
The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing |
title_full |
The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing |
title_fullStr |
The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing |
title_sort |
role of rossby wave breaking in shaping the equilibrium atmospheric circulation response to north atlantic boundary forcing |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8gr4622s |
op_coverage |
1269 - 1276 |
genre |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation Sea ice |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation Sea ice |
op_source |
Strong, Courtenay; & Magnusdottir, Gudrun. (2010). The Role of Rossby Wave Breaking in Shaping the Equilibrium Atmospheric Circulation Response to North Atlantic Boundary Forcing. Journal of Climate, 23(6), 1269 - 1276. doi:10.1175/2009JCLI2676.1. UC Irvine: Department of Earth System Science, UCI. Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8gr4622s |
op_relation |
qt8gr4622s http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8gr4622s |
op_rights |
Attribution (CC BY): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JCLI2676.1 |
container_title |
Journal of Climate |
container_volume |
23 |
container_issue |
6 |
container_start_page |
1269 |
op_container_end_page |
1276 |
_version_ |
1766127413549334528 |