Northern Hemisphere midlatitude cyclone variability in GCM simulations with different ocean representations

Abstract : The impact of different ocean models or sea surface temperature (SST) and sea-ice concentrations on cyclone tracks in the Northern Hemisphere midlatitudes is determined within a hierarchy of model simulations. A reference simulation with the coupled atmosphere ocean circulation model ECHAM/HOPE is compared with simulations using ECHAM and three simplified ocean and sea-ice representations: (1) a variable depth mixed layer (ML) ocean, (2) forcing by varying SST and sea-ice, and (3) with climatological SST and sea-ice; the latter two are from the coupled ECHAM/HOPE integration. The reference simulation reproduces the observed cyclone tracks. The cyclones are tracked automatically by a standard routine and the variability of individual cyclone trajectories within the storm tracks is determined by a cluster approach. In the forced simulation with varying SST, the geographical distribution and the statistics of the cyclones are not altered compared to the coupled reference simulation. In the ML- and the climatological simulation, deviations of the mean cyclone distribution are found which occur mainly in the North Pacific, and can partially be traced back to missing El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability. The climatological experiment is superior to the ML-experiment. The variability of the individual cyclone trajectories, as determined by the cluster analysis, reveals the same types and frequencies of propagation directions for all four representations of the lower boundary. The largest discrepancies for the cluster occupations are found for the climatological and the ML-simulatio

Low-frequency variability in idealised GCM experiments with circumpolar and localised storm tracks

International audienceIdealised global circulation model simulations with circumpolar and localised (one and two) storm tracks are re-analysed to determine scaling, intermittency and phase-space structures. In a hundred year experiment with a circumpolar storm track, the spectrum S(f ) of the first principal component of the zonal wind fluctuations shows the following power law regimes: (a) a short-term memory between f- -4 and f -2 up to 50 days and (b) a long-term memory f -1 from 50 to 400 days and f -0.24 beyond 400 days, similar to observed maritime single station near-surface air temperature data. In the presence of localised storm tracks, the wave number two dominates the dynamics and a long-term memory cannot be detected. The recurrence plot is introduced as a novel tool to comprehensively visualise the evolution of the dynamical system in terms of state separations (distances) in phase space. The patterns allow for a qualitative interpretation of the underlying local phenomena in phase space, such as waves, analogs, extremes, and global regimes. Attractor dimensions are, in general, larger than 10, but they appear to be lower in the wave-dominated regimes of the double storm track experiment

Fluctuation regimes of soil moisture in ERA-40 re-analysis data

Soil moisture variability is analysed in the re-analysis data ERA-40 of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) which includes four layers within 189 cm depth. Short-term correlations are characterised by an e-folding time scale assuming an exponential decay, whilst long-term memory is described by power law decays with exponents determined by detrended fluctuation analysis. On a global scale, the short-term variability varies congruently with long-term memory in the surface layer. Key climatic regions (Europe, Amazon and Sahara) reveal that soil moisture time series are non-stationary in arid regions and in deep layers within the time horizon of ERA-40. The physical processes leading to soil moisture variability are linear according to an analysis of volatility (the absolute differences), which is substantiated by surrogate data analysis preserving the long-term memory

Return levels of temperature extremes in southern Pakistan

Southern Pakistan (Sindh) is one of the hottest regions in the world and is highly vulnerable to temperature extremes. In order to improve rural and urban planning, it is useful to gather information about the recurrence of temperature extremes. In this work, return levels of the daily maximum temperature Tmax are estimated, as well as the daily maximum wet-bulb temperature TWmax extremes. We adopt the peaks over threshold (POT) method, which has not yet been used for similar studies in this region. Two main datasets are analyzed: temperatures observed at nine meteorological stations in southern Pakistan from 1980 to 2013, and the ERA-Interim (ECMWF reanalysis) data for the nearest corresponding locations. The analysis provides the 2-, 5-, 10-, 25-, 50-, and 100-year return levels (RLs) of temperature extremes. The 90 % quantile is found to be a suitable threshold for all stations. We find that the RLs of the observed Tmax are above 50 °C at northern stations and above 45 °C at the southern stations. The RLs of the observed TWmax exceed 35 °C in the region, which is considered as a limit of survivability. The RLs estimated from the ERA-Interim data are lower by 3 to 5 °C than the RLs assessed for the nine meteorological stations. A simple bias correction applied to ERA-Interim data improves the RLs remarkably, yet discrepancies are still present. The results have potential implications for the risk assessment of extreme temperatures in Sindh

Avalanches, breathers, and flow reversal in a continuous Lorenz-96 model

For the discrete model suggested by Lorenz in 1996, a one-dimensional long-wave approximation with nonlinear excitation and diffusion is derived. The model is energy conserving but non-Hamiltonian. In a low-order truncation, weak external forcing of the zonal mean flow induces avalanchelike breather solutions which cause reversal of the mean flow by a wave-mean flow interaction. The mechanism is an outburst-recharge process similar to avalanches in a sandpile model

Symmetry Analysis of Barotropic Potential Vorticity Equation

Recently F. Huang [Commun. Theor. Phys. V.42 (2004) 903] and X. Tang and P.K. Shukla [Commun. Theor. Phys. V.49 (2008) 229] investigated symmetry properties of the barotropic potential vorticity equation without forcing and dissipation on the beta-plane. This equation is governed by two dimensionless parameters, $F$ and $\beta$, representing the ratio of the characteristic length scale to the Rossby radius of deformation and the variation of earth' angular rotation, respectively. In the present paper it is shown that in the case $F\ne 0$ there exists a well-defined point transformation to set $\beta = 0$. The classification of one- and two-dimensional Lie subalgebras of the Lie symmetry algebra of the potential vorticity equation is given for the parameter combination $F\ne 0$ and $\beta = 0$. Based upon this classification, distinct classes of group-invariant solutions is obtained and extended to the case $\beta \ne 0$.Comment: 6 pages, release version, added reference for section

Return interval distribution of extreme events and long term memory

The distribution of recurrence times or return intervals between extreme events is important to characterize and understand the behavior of physical systems and phenomena in many disciplines. It is well known that many physical processes in nature and society display long range correlations. Hence, in the last few years, considerable research effort has been directed towards studying the distribution of return intervals for long range correlated time series. Based on numerical simulations, it was shown that the return interval distributions are of stretched exponential type. In this paper, we obtain an analytical expression for the distribution of return intervals in long range correlated time series which holds good when the average return intervals are large. We show that the distribution is actually a product of power law and a stretched exponential form. We also discuss the regimes of validity and perform detailed studies on how the return interval distribution depends on the threshold used to define extreme events.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Nambu representation of an extended Lorenz model with viscous heating

We consider the Nambu and Hamiltonian representations of Rayleigh-Benard convection with a nonlinear thermal heating effect proportional to the Eckert number (Ec). The model we use is an extension of the classical Lorenz-63 model with 4 kinematic and 6 thermal degrees of freedom. The conservative parts of the dynamical equations which include all nonlinearities satisfy Liouville's theorem and permit a conserved Hamiltonian H for arbitrary Ec. For Ec=0 two independent conserved Casimir functions exist, one of these is associated with unavailable potential energy and is also present in the Lorenz-63 truncation. This Casimir C is used to construct a Nambu representation of the conserved part of the dynamical system. The thermal heating effect can be represented either by a second canonical Hamiltonian or as a gradient (metric) system using the time derivative of the Casimir. The results demonstrate the impact of viscous heating in the total energy budget and in the Lorenz energy cycle for kinetic and available potential energy.Comment: 15 pages, no figur

Variability regimes of simulated Atlantic MOC

The spectral variability structure of the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) of the Atlantic Ocean is determined in 500 year simulations with state-of-the-art coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (GFDL and ECHAM5/MPIOM). The power spectra of the monthly stream function are compared with trend-eliminating detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA2). The shapes of the spectra differ substantially between latitudes, depth and the two models with constant (white) behaviour for high frequencies as a single common feature. The most frequent property of the spectra is power-law scaling, S(f) ∼ f −β , with nontrivial exponents, mostly β ≈ 1, in agreement with 1/f or flicker noise; this is mainly found in the interannual to decadal frequency range (1/f spectra observed for sea surface temperature fluctuations are explained by a stochastically forced ocean energy balance model with vertical diffusion). For lowest frequencies, some spectra show stationary long term memory, while others reveal spectra increasing with frequency. None of the spectra can be considered uniquely as red noise explained by an ocean integrating a white stochastic atmospheric forcing