Equatorial mountain torques and cold surge preconditioning

• Published in: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
• Main Authors: Mailler, Sylvain, Lott, François
• Other Authors: École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539) (LMD), Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Département des Géosciences - ENS Paris, École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2010
• Subjects: [SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean; Atmosphere; [SDU.ENVI]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Continental interfaces; environment; [SDU.STU.ME]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Meteorology; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01136866; https://hal.science/hal-01136866/document; https://hal.science/hal-01136866/file/2010jas33822E1.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1175/2010jas3382.1

International audience The evolution of the two components of the equatorial mountain torque (EMT) applied by mountains on the atmosphere is analyzed in the NCEP reanalysis. A strong lagged relationship between the EMT component along the Greenwich axis TM1 and the EMT component along the 90°E axis TM2 is found, with a pronounced signal on TM1 followed by a signal of opposite sign on TM2. It is shown that this result holds for themajor massifs (Antarctica, the Tibetan Plateau, the Rockies, and the Andes) if a suitable axis systemis used for each of them. For the midlatitude mountains, this relationship is in part associated with the development of cold surges. Following these results, two hypotheses are made: (i) the mountain forcing on the atmosphere is well measured by the regional EMTs and (ii) this forcing partly drives the cold surges. To support these, a purely dynamical linear model is proposed: it is written on the sphere, uses an f-plane quasigeostrophic approximation, and includes the mountain forcings. In this model, a positive (negative) peak in TM1 produced by a mountain massif in the Northern (Southern) Hemisphere is due to a large-scale high surface pressure anomaly poleward of the massif. At a later stage, high pressure and low temperature anomalies develop in the lower troposphere east of the mountain, explaining the signal on TM2 and providing the favorable conditions for the cold surge development. It is concluded that the EMT is a good measure of the dynamical forcing of the atmospheric flow by the mountains and that the poleward forces exerted by mountains on the atmosphere are substantial drivers of the cold surges, at least in their early stage. Therefore, the EMT time series can be an important diagnostic to assess the representation of mountains in general circulation models. © 2010 American Meteorological Society.