Interaction between Atlantic cyclones and Eurasian atmospheric blocking drives wintertime warm extremes in the high Arctic
Atmospheric blocking can influence Arctic weather by diverting the mean westerly flow and steering cyclones polewards, bringing warm, moist air to high latitudes. Recent studies have shown that diabatic heating processes in the ascending warm conveyor belt branch of extratropical cyclones are releva...
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ftethz:oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/583026 2023-05-15T14:53:00+02:00 Interaction between Atlantic cyclones and Eurasian atmospheric blocking drives wintertime warm extremes in the high Arctic Murto, Sonja Caballero, Rodrigo Svensson, Gunilla Papritz, Lukas 2022 application/application/pdf https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/583026 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000583026 en eng Copernicus info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.5194/wcd-3-21-2022 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/583026 doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000583026 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International CC-BY Weather and Climate Dynamics, 3 (1) info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 2022 ftethz https://doi.org/20.500.11850/583026 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000583026 https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-21-2022 2023-02-20T00:40:31Z Atmospheric blocking can influence Arctic weather by diverting the mean westerly flow and steering cyclones polewards, bringing warm, moist air to high latitudes. Recent studies have shown that diabatic heating processes in the ascending warm conveyor belt branch of extratropical cyclones are relevant to blocking dynamics. This leads to the question of the extent to which diabatic heating associated with mid-latitude cyclones may influence high-latitude blocking and drive Arctic warm events. In this study we investigate the dynamics behind 50 extreme warm events of wintertime high-Arctic temperature anomalies during 1979–2016. Classifying the warm events based on blocking occurrence within three selected sectors, we find that 30 of these events are associated with a block over the Urals, featuring negative upper-level potential vorticity (PV) anomalies over central Siberia north of the Ural Mountains. Lagrangian back-trajectory calculations show that almost 60 % of the air parcels making up these negative PV anomalies experience lifting and diabatic heating (median 11 K) in the 6 d prior to the block. Further, almost 70 % of the heated trajectories undergo maximum heating in a compact region of the mid-latitude North Atlantic, temporally taking place between 6 and 1 d before arriving in the blocking region. We also find anomalously high cyclone activity (on average five cyclones within this 5 d heating window) within a sector northwest of the main heating domain. In addition, 10 of the 50 warm events are associated with blocking over Scandinavia. Around 60 % of the 6 d back trajectories started from these blocks experience diabatic heating, of which 60 % undergo maximum heating over the North Atlantic but generally closer to the time of arrival in the block and further upstream relative to heated trajectories associated with Ural blocking. This study suggests that, in addition to the ability of blocks to guide cyclones northwards, Atlantic cyclones play a significant role in the dynamics of high-latitude ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic North Atlantic Siberia ETH Zürich Research Collection Arctic |
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Open Polar |
collection |
ETH Zürich Research Collection |
op_collection_id |
ftethz |
language |
English |
description |
Atmospheric blocking can influence Arctic weather by diverting the mean westerly flow and steering cyclones polewards, bringing warm, moist air to high latitudes. Recent studies have shown that diabatic heating processes in the ascending warm conveyor belt branch of extratropical cyclones are relevant to blocking dynamics. This leads to the question of the extent to which diabatic heating associated with mid-latitude cyclones may influence high-latitude blocking and drive Arctic warm events. In this study we investigate the dynamics behind 50 extreme warm events of wintertime high-Arctic temperature anomalies during 1979–2016. Classifying the warm events based on blocking occurrence within three selected sectors, we find that 30 of these events are associated with a block over the Urals, featuring negative upper-level potential vorticity (PV) anomalies over central Siberia north of the Ural Mountains. Lagrangian back-trajectory calculations show that almost 60 % of the air parcels making up these negative PV anomalies experience lifting and diabatic heating (median 11 K) in the 6 d prior to the block. Further, almost 70 % of the heated trajectories undergo maximum heating in a compact region of the mid-latitude North Atlantic, temporally taking place between 6 and 1 d before arriving in the blocking region. We also find anomalously high cyclone activity (on average five cyclones within this 5 d heating window) within a sector northwest of the main heating domain. In addition, 10 of the 50 warm events are associated with blocking over Scandinavia. Around 60 % of the 6 d back trajectories started from these blocks experience diabatic heating, of which 60 % undergo maximum heating over the North Atlantic but generally closer to the time of arrival in the block and further upstream relative to heated trajectories associated with Ural blocking. This study suggests that, in addition to the ability of blocks to guide cyclones northwards, Atlantic cyclones play a significant role in the dynamics of high-latitude ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Murto, Sonja Caballero, Rodrigo Svensson, Gunilla Papritz, Lukas |
spellingShingle |
Murto, Sonja Caballero, Rodrigo Svensson, Gunilla Papritz, Lukas Interaction between Atlantic cyclones and Eurasian atmospheric blocking drives wintertime warm extremes in the high Arctic |
author_facet |
Murto, Sonja Caballero, Rodrigo Svensson, Gunilla Papritz, Lukas |
author_sort |
Murto, Sonja |
title |
Interaction between Atlantic cyclones and Eurasian atmospheric blocking drives wintertime warm extremes in the high Arctic |
title_short |
Interaction between Atlantic cyclones and Eurasian atmospheric blocking drives wintertime warm extremes in the high Arctic |
title_full |
Interaction between Atlantic cyclones and Eurasian atmospheric blocking drives wintertime warm extremes in the high Arctic |
title_fullStr |
Interaction between Atlantic cyclones and Eurasian atmospheric blocking drives wintertime warm extremes in the high Arctic |
title_full_unstemmed |
Interaction between Atlantic cyclones and Eurasian atmospheric blocking drives wintertime warm extremes in the high Arctic |
title_sort |
interaction between atlantic cyclones and eurasian atmospheric blocking drives wintertime warm extremes in the high arctic |
publisher |
Copernicus |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/583026 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000583026 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic North Atlantic Siberia |
genre_facet |
Arctic North Atlantic Siberia |
op_source |
Weather and Climate Dynamics, 3 (1) |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.5194/wcd-3-21-2022 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/583026 doi:10.3929/ethz-b-000583026 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/20.500.11850/583026 https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000583026 https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-21-2022 |
_version_ |
1766324419042476032 |