Polar low research: recent developments and promising courses of research

Polar lows (PLs) are intense maritime mesoscale weather systems that develop during marine cold air outbreaks at high latitudes. The objective of this review is to describe the advances in polar low research since the last literature review—published 3 years ago—, indicate the knowledge gaps that re...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in Earth Science
Main Author: Marta Moreno-Ibáñez
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2024
Subjects:
Q
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2024.1368179
https://doaj.org/article/c7f0d2f111204ad79f95750be37a75e2
Description
Summary:Polar lows (PLs) are intense maritime mesoscale weather systems that develop during marine cold air outbreaks at high latitudes. The objective of this review is to describe the advances in polar low research since the last literature review—published 3 years ago—, indicate the knowledge gaps that remain, and suggest promising courses of research. Among the breakthroughs identified here are the first climatology of PLs obtained with a global atmospheric model, and increased evidence showing that baroclinic instability is the main mechanism leading to PL development. Despite these advances, many challenges persist such as the lack of conventional observations of PLs and the need to better understand coupled atmosphere-ocean processes involved in PL development. With the rapid advances in deep learning, this method has the potential to be used for PL forecasting.