Diagnosing high sinuosity regimes associated with anomalous Greenland ice-melt events using self-organizing maps

• Main Author: El Riachy, Mansour
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholars Archive 2021
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic amplification; Greenland ice-melt; Self-organizing maps; Synoptic meteorology; Ice; Cyclones; Climatic changes; Atmospheric circulation; Atmospheric Sciences; Greenland
• Online Access: https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/legacy-etd/2676; https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/context/legacy-etd/article/3675/viewcontent/El_Riachy_T6GXDcajcZdbc2UkXgEHMH.pdf

Sinuosity, a metric that describes the waviness of the circumpolar flow, is adapted to quantify modification of the tropospheric polar vortex within longitudinal sectors by localized incursions of warm, moist air from middle latitudes associated with Arctic cyclones (ACs). In this thesis, we identify four corridors of high AC track frequency, on which we center 90° longitudinal sectors comprising the following regions: Pacific, West of Greenland, Atlantic, and Asian. Sectorial sinuosity is calculated for the West of Greenland sector and is used to quantify the amplitude of the 300-hPa flow associated with anomalous Greenland ice-melt events.