The association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks
Previous studies have identified an association between near-surface temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere and weak stratospheric polar westerlies. Large regions in northern Asia, Europe and North America have been found to cool in the mature and late stages of stratospheric weak vortex e...
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ftdatacite:10.48550/arxiv.0906.0027 2023-05-15T17:35:06+02:00 The association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks Kolstad, E. W. Breiteig, T. Scaife, A. A. 2009 https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0906.0027 https://arxiv.org/abs/0906.0027 unknown arXiv https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.620 arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph FOS Physical sciences article-journal Article ScholarlyArticle Text 2009 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0906.0027 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.620 2022-04-01T14:45:53Z Previous studies have identified an association between near-surface temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere and weak stratospheric polar westerlies. Large regions in northern Asia, Europe and North America have been found to cool in the mature and late stages of stratospheric weak vortex events. A substantial part of the temperature changes are associated with changes to the tropospheric Northern Annular Mode and North Atlantic Oscillation pressure patterns. The apparent coupling between the stratosphere and the troposphere may be of relevance for weather forecasting, but only if the temporal and spatial nature of the coupling is known. Here we show, using 51 winters of re-analysis data, that the tropospheric temperature development relative to stratospheric weak polar vortex events goes through a series of well-defined stages, including geographically distinct cold air outbreaks. At the inception of weak vortex events, a precursor signal in the form of a strong high-pressure anomaly is found over Northwest Europe. At the same time, long-lived and robust cold anomalies appear over Asia and Western Europe. A few weeks later, near the mature stage of weak vortex events, a shorter-lived cold anomaly emerges off the east coast of North America.The probability of cold air outbreaks in different phases of the weak vortex life cycle increases by 40-70 % in four key regions. This shows that the stratospheric polar vortex contains information that can be used to enhance forecasts of cold air outbreaks. 300-year pre-industrial control runs of 11 state-of-the-art coupled climate models corroborate our results. : Submitted to Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society on 5 June May, 2009. Minor changes with respect to v1 and v2 Text North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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topic |
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph FOS Physical sciences |
spellingShingle |
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph FOS Physical sciences Kolstad, E. W. Breiteig, T. Scaife, A. A. The association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks |
topic_facet |
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph FOS Physical sciences |
description |
Previous studies have identified an association between near-surface temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere and weak stratospheric polar westerlies. Large regions in northern Asia, Europe and North America have been found to cool in the mature and late stages of stratospheric weak vortex events. A substantial part of the temperature changes are associated with changes to the tropospheric Northern Annular Mode and North Atlantic Oscillation pressure patterns. The apparent coupling between the stratosphere and the troposphere may be of relevance for weather forecasting, but only if the temporal and spatial nature of the coupling is known. Here we show, using 51 winters of re-analysis data, that the tropospheric temperature development relative to stratospheric weak polar vortex events goes through a series of well-defined stages, including geographically distinct cold air outbreaks. At the inception of weak vortex events, a precursor signal in the form of a strong high-pressure anomaly is found over Northwest Europe. At the same time, long-lived and robust cold anomalies appear over Asia and Western Europe. A few weeks later, near the mature stage of weak vortex events, a shorter-lived cold anomaly emerges off the east coast of North America.The probability of cold air outbreaks in different phases of the weak vortex life cycle increases by 40-70 % in four key regions. This shows that the stratospheric polar vortex contains information that can be used to enhance forecasts of cold air outbreaks. 300-year pre-industrial control runs of 11 state-of-the-art coupled climate models corroborate our results. : Submitted to Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society on 5 June May, 2009. Minor changes with respect to v1 and v2 |
format |
Text |
author |
Kolstad, E. W. Breiteig, T. Scaife, A. A. |
author_facet |
Kolstad, E. W. Breiteig, T. Scaife, A. A. |
author_sort |
Kolstad, E. W. |
title |
The association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks |
title_short |
The association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks |
title_full |
The association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks |
title_fullStr |
The association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks |
title_full_unstemmed |
The association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks |
title_sort |
association between stratospheric weak polar vortex events and cold air outbreaks |
publisher |
arXiv |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0906.0027 https://arxiv.org/abs/0906.0027 |
genre |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.620 |
op_rights |
arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.0906.0027 https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.620 |
_version_ |
1766134156879724544 |