Dynamics of 2013 Sudden Stratospheric Warming event and its impact on cold weather over Eurasia: Role of planetary wave reflection

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Nath, Debashis, Chen, Wen, Zelin, Cai, Pogoreltsev, Alexander Ivanovich, Wei, Ke
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group 2016
• Subjects: Article; Pacific; North Atlantic; Tundra
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823715/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27051997; https://doi.org/10.1038/srep24174

In the present study, we investigate the impact of stratospheric planetary wave reflection on tropospheric weather over Central Eurasia during the 2013 Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) event. We analyze EP fluxes and Plumb wave activity fluxes to study the two and three dimensional aspects of wave propagation, respectively. The 2013 SSW event is excited by the combined influence of wavenumber 1 (WN1) and wavenumber 2 (WN2) planetary waves, which makes the event an unusual one and seems to have significant impact on tropospheric weather regime. We observe an extraordinary development of a ridge over the Siberian Tundra and the North Pacific during first development stage (last week of December 2012) and later from the North Atlantic in the second development stage (first week of January 2013), and these waves appear to be responsible for the excitation of the WN2 pattern during the SSW. The wave packets propagated upward and were then reflected back down to central Eurasia due to strong negative wind shear in the upper stratospheric polar jet, caused by the SSW event. Waves that propagated downward led to the formation of a deep trough over Eurasia and brought extreme cold weather over Kazakhstan, the Southern part of Russia and the Northwestern part of China during mid-January 2013.