Professor Lesley Gray

Abstract:

Extreme polar vortex events known as sudden stratospheric warmings can influence surface winter weather conditions, but their timing is difficult to predict. Here, we examine factors that influence their occurrence, with a focus on their timing and vertical extent. We consider the roles of the troposphere and equatorial stratosphere separately, using a split vortex event in January 2009 as the primary case study. This event cannot be reproduced by constraining wind and temperatures in the troposphere alone, even when the equatorial lower stratosphere is in the correct phase of the quasi biennial oscillation. When the flow in the equatorial upper stratosphere is also constrained, the timing and spatial evolution of the vortex event is captured remarkably well. This highlights an influence from this region previously unrecognised by the seasonal forecast community. We suggest that better representation of the flow in this region is likely to improve predictability of extreme polar vortex events and hence their associated impacts at the surface.

Abstract:

The simulated climate of the American monsoon system (AMS) in the UK models HadGEM3 GC3.1 (GC3) and the Earth system model UKESM1 is assessed and compared to observations and reanalysis. We evaluate the pre-industrial control, AMIP and historical experiments of UKESM1 and two configurations of GC3: a low (1.875∘×1.25∘) and a medium (0.83∘×0.56∘) resolution. The simulations show a good representation of the seasonal cycle of temperature in monsoon regions, although the historical experiments overestimate the observed summer temperature in the Amazon, Mexico and Central America by more than 1.5 K. The seasonal cycle of rainfall and general characteristics of the North American monsoon of all the simulations agree well with observations and reanalysis, showing a notable improvement from previous versions of the HadGEM model. The models reasonably simulate the bimodal regime of precipitation in southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean known as the midsummer drought, although with a stronger-than-observed difference between the two peaks of precipitation and the dry period. Austral summer biases in the modelled Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), cloud cover and regional temperature patterns are significant and influence the simulated regional rainfall in the South American monsoon. These biases lead to an overestimation of precipitation in southeastern Brazil and an underestimation of precipitation in the Amazon. The precipitation biases over the Amazon and southeastern Brazil are greatly reduced in the AMIP simulations, highlighting that the Atlantic sea surface temperatures are key for representing precipitation in the South American monsoon. El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections, of precipitation and temperature, to the AMS are reasonably simulated by all the experiments. The precipitation responses to the positive and negative phase of ENSO in subtropical America are linear in both pre-industrial and historical experiments. Overall, the biases in UKESM1 and the low-resolution configuration of GC3 are very similar for precipitation, ITCZ and Walker circulation; i.e. the inclusion of Earth system processes appears to make no significant difference for the representation of the AMS rainfall. In contrast, the medium-resolution HadGEM3 N216 simulation outperforms the low-resolution simulations due to improved SSTs and circulation.

Abstract:

The boreal‐winter stratospheric polar vortex is more disturbed when the quasi‐biennial oscillation (QBO) in the lower stratosphere is in its easterly phase (eQBO), and more stable during the westerly phase (wQBO). This so‐called “Holton‐Tan effect” (HTE) is known to involve Rossby waves (RWs) but the details remain obscure.

This tropical‐extratropical connection is re‐examined in an attempt to explain its intra‐seasonal variation and its relation to Rossby wave breaking (RWB). Reanalyses in isentropic coordinates from the National Center for Environmental Prediction Climate Forecast System for the 1979 – 2017 period are used to evaluate the relevant features of RWB in the context of waveguide, wave mean‐flow interaction, and the QBO‐induced meridional circulation. During eQBO, the net extratropical wave forcing is enhanced in early winter with ~25% increase in upward propagating PRWs of zonal wavenumber 1 (wave‐1). RWB is also enhanced in the lower stratosphere, characterized by convergent anomalies in the subtropics and at high‐latitudes and strengthened waveguide in between at 20‐40°N, 350‐650 K. In late winter, RWB leads to finite amplitude growth, which hinders upward propagating PRWs of zonal wavenumber 2 and 3 (wave‐2‐3). During wQBO, RWB in association with wave‐2‐3 is enhanced in the upper stratosphere. Wave absorption/mixing in the surf zone reinforces a stable polar vortex in early to middle winter. A poleward confinement of extratropical waveguide in the upper stratosphere forces RWB to extend downward around January. A strengthening of upward propagating wave‐2‐3 follows and the polar‐vortex response switches from reinforcement to disturbance around February, thus a sign reversal of the HTE in late winter.