propagation of the great salinity anomaly of the 1990s around the northern north atlantic 1 time series of t and s extending through 2001 are used to describe propagation of the great salinity anomaly of the 1990s gsa 90s comparison of the distance time relations for the gsa 70s 80s and 90s reveals a substantial intensification of the large scale circulation in the northern north atlantic especially in the subarctic gyre between newfoundland and the faroes the advection rate of the gsa 70s 80s and 90s between newfoundland and the faroe shetland channel is conservatively estimated to have been 3 5 10 and 10 cm s respectively the circulation intensification apparently occurred within a decade between the gsa 70s and 80s during the next decade the advection rate increased from 10 to 13 cm s between newfoundland and iceland basin the gsa 90s was advected towards the faroe shetland channel by the northern iceland basin s branch of the north atlantic current whereas the contribution of the southern branch via the rockall trough was minimal

adamantinasuchus navae a new gondwanan crocodylomorpha mesoeucrocodylia from the late cretaceous of brazil abstract a new late cretaceous mesoeucrocodylian from the adamantina formation bauru basin sao paulo state brazil is described the main features of this new species are the short high oreinirostral rostrum the large laterally positioned orbital notches and external nares in the anteriormost portion of the rostrum the mandible is robust and concave shaped in relation to the skull the dentition is highly specialized with two prominent incisiform teeth a hypertrophied caniniform and seven molariform teeth the molariform teeth are ornamented with denticles in their lingual surface and are smooth on their labial surface the molariforms are elliptical in cross section presenting the largest axis in the labial lingual direction such dental characteristics are unique among the terrestrial crocodylomorphs of the gondwana

regional patterns of sea level change related to interannual variability and multidecadal trends in the atlantic meridional overturning circulation some studies of ocean climate model experiments suggest that regional changes in dynamic sea level could provide a valuable indicator of trends in the strength of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation moc this paper describes the use of a sequence of global ocean ice model experiments to show that the diagnosed patterns of sea surface height ssh anomalies associated with changes in the moc in the north atlantic na depend critically on the time scales of interest model hindcast simulations for 1958 2004 reproduce the observed pattern of ssh variability with extrema occurring along the gulf stream gs and in the subpolar gyre spg but they also show that the pattern is primarily related to the wind driven variability of moc and gyre circulation on interannual time scales it is reflected also in the leading eof of ssh variability over the na ocean as described in previous studies the pattern however is not useful as a fingerprint of longer term changes in the moc as shown with a companion experiment a multidecadal gradual decline in the moc of 5 sv 1 sv 106 m3 s 1 over 5 decades induces a much broader basin scale ssh rise over the mid to high latitude na with amplitudes of 20 cm the detectability of such a trend is low along the gs since low frequency ssh changes are effectively masked here by strong variability on shorter time scales more favorable signal to noise ratios are found in the spg and the eastern na where a moc trend of 0 1 sv yr 1 would leave a significant imprint in ssh already after about 20 years

response of the global ocean to greenland and antarctic ice melting 1 we investigate the transient response of the global ocean circulation to enhanced freshwater forcing associated with melting of the greenland and antarctic ice sheets increased freshwater runoff from greenland results in a basin wide response of the north atlantic on timescales of a few years communicated via boundary waves equatorial kelvin waves and westward propagating rossby waves in addition modified air sea interaction plays a fundamental role in setting up the basin scale response of the atlantic circulation in its subpolar and subtropical gyres in particular the modified ocean dynamics and thermodynamics lead to a depression in the central north and south atlantic that would not be expected from linear wave dynamics moreover the heat content increases on basin and global scales in response to anomalous freshwater forcing from greenland suggesting that the ocean s response to enhanced freshwater forcing would be a coupled problem other parts of the world ocean experience a much slower adjustment in response to greenland freshwater forcing communicated via planetary waves but also involving advective diffusive processes especially in the southern ocean over the 50 years considered here most of the sea level increase associated with freshwater input from greenland remains in the atlantic ocean in contrast ice melting around antarctica has a much reduced effect on the global ocean in both cases none of the basins came to a stationary state during the 50 year experiment

the transient atmospheric circulation response to north atlantic sst and sea ice anomalies abstract the objective of this study is to investigate the transient evolution of the wintertime atmospheric circulation response to imposed patterns of sst and sea ice extent anomalies in the north atlantic sector using a large ensemble of experiments with the ncar community climate model version 3 ccm3 the initial adjustment of the atmospheric circulation is characterized by an out of phase relationship between geopotential height anomalies in the lower and upper troposphere localized to the vicinity of the forcing this initial baroclinic response reaches a maximum amplitude in 5 10 days and persists for 2 3 weeks diagnostic results with a linear primitive equation model indicate that this initial response is forced by diabatic heating anomalies in the lower troposphere associated with surface heat flux anomalies generated by the imposed thermal forcing following the initial baroclinic stage of adjustment the response becomes progressively more barotropic and increases in both spatial extent an

on the separability of the north atlantic oscillation and arctic oscillation we address the issue of whether the arctic ao and north atlantic oscillations nao are inseparable forming an annular mode in the northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation this annular mode is the leading empirical orthogonal function of hemispheric sea level pressure slp data explaining the largest amount of its variability we examine whether the nao and ao are inseparable spatial modes of the atmospheric circulation using rotated principal component analysis rpca a methodology that identifies simple and unique patterns of spatial dataset variability rpca of the spring summer and autumn slp fields from 1946 1998 reveal nao and ao like patterns occurring as separate regional teleconnections forming the first and second principal components respectively the rpca based nao dipole pattern is like that observed in many prior studies while the ao like pattern exhibits high slp variability over the kara and laptev seas during winter however and in annual analyses a distinct ao like pattern is not obtained and the two patterns may be inseparable using commonly accepted rpca methods the rpca based ao like mode is significantly linked to north central siberian seasonal air temperatures and to the prevailing direction of motion of the underlying arctic ocean in summer suggesting that the non winter ao like pattern as a stand alone teleconnection separate from the nao contributes significantly to high latitude climate and ocean variability the winter nao ao inseparability is discussed as a possible effect of a shared winter storm track between the northeastern atlantic and the arctic

recent antarctic ice mass loss from radar interferometry and regional climate modelling observed estimates of ice losses in antarctica combined with regional modelling of ice accumulation in the interior suggest that east antarctica is close to a balanced mass budget but large losses of ice occur in the narrow outlet channels of west antarctic glaciers and at the northern tip of the antarctic peninsula

on the early response of the climate system to a meltwater input from greenland theearlyresponseoftheatmosphere oceansystemtomeltwaterrunofforiginatingfromthegreenlandice sheet is studied using a coupled atmosphere ocean general circulation model aogcm for this purpose aogcm ensemble simulations without and with associated ocean freshening around greenland are compared for freshwater perturbations initiated in northern winter the mean response for the first three months shows the emergence of negative sea surface temperature sst anomalies in the denmark strait in association with enhanced oceanic advection by the east greenland current the response also shows negative sst anomalies in the north atlantic associated with enhanced westerlies at the ocean surface additionally the baroclinic atmospheric cyclonic circulation east of greenland intensifies and anticyclonic circulations with equivalent barotropic structures develop over western europe and the north pacific ocean simulations by the atmospheric component of the aogcm indicate that atmosphere ocean interactions contribute significantly to enhance the response the sensitivity of the coupled system response to the timing of freshwater perturbation is also studied for freshwater perturbations initialized in northern summer the response during the following winter is similar but stronger in magnitude in the northern hemisphere the atmospheric response resembles the arctic oscillation ao mode of variability the association between anomalies in the denmark strait ssts and in the atmosphere east of greenland is consistent with that observedduring previous great salinityanomaly gsa events the results obtainedhighlight the importance ofatmosphere oceaninteractionintheearlyclimateresponsetogreenlandmelting theteleconnectionswith the north pacific and the contribution of gsa events to north atlantic oscillation nao variability

classification seasonality and persistence of low frequency atmospheric circulation patterns abstract orthogonally rotated principle component analysis rpca of northern hemisphere 1 month mean 700 mb heights is used to identify and describe the seasonality and persistence of the major modes of interannual variability the analysis is detailed and comprehensive in that 1 a high resolution approximately equal area 358 point grid is used for the virtually maximum possible 35 year period of record 2 a positive bias in the nmc data base in the early 1950s in the subtropics is largely eliminated for the first time and 3 homogeneous separate analyses of each month of the year are carried out detailing the mouth to month changes in the dominant circulation patterns winter results are similar to those of other recent rpca and teleconnection studies except that some less obvious patterns are identified and further detail of the better known patterns is provided two north south dipole patterns are found over the pacific ocean west pacific oscillation and east pacific pattern and over the atla

on the mechanisms behind salinity anomaly signals of the northern north atlantic abstract hydrographic time series from the northern north atlantic throughout the 20th century show oscillations in temperature and salinity at more or less regular intervals the great salinity anomalies described during the 1970s dickson r r meincke j malmberg s a lee a j 1988 the great salinity anomaly in the north atlantic 1968 1982 progress in oceanography 20 103 151 during the 1980s belkin i m levitus s antonov j malmberg s a 1998 great salinity anomalies in the north atlantic progress in oceanography 41 1 68 and during the 1990s belkin i m 2004 propagation of the great salinity anomaly of the 1990s around the northern north atlantic geophysical research letters 31 8 l08306 doi 10 1029 2003gl019334 have distinct amplitudes and all three of them were interpreted as low salinity anomalies propagating downstream through the anti clockwise circulation system of the northern north atlantic ocean further inspection of time series from the northeast atlantic and the northwest atlantic over the past century shows however several other distinct negative anomalies of lesser amplitudes additionally a number of high salinity anomalies can be identified the present paper analyses further the propagation of the negative and positive anomalies and links them together it is shown that they have varying speeds of propagation and that the varying speeds are correlated across the north atlantic we propose that varying volume fluxes in and out of the arctic basin is the causal mechanism behind the anomaly signals and that the north atlantic oscillation nao partly has influence on the flux variations described periods of large decadal scale amplitudes of the nao coincide with periods of large decadal scale oscillation in the marine climate

increasing rates of ice mass loss from the greenland and antarctic ice sheets revealed by grace 1 we use monthly measurements of time variable gravity from the grace gravity recovery and climate experiment satellite gravity mission to determine the ice mass loss for the greenland and antarctic ice sheets during the period between april 2002 and february 2009 we find that during this time period the mass loss of the ice sheets is not a constant but accelerating with time i e that the grace observations are better represented by a quadratic trend than by a linear one implying that the ice sheets contribution to sea level becomes larger with time in greenland the mass loss increased from 137 gt yr in 2002 2003 to 286 gt yr in 2007 2009 i e an acceleration of 30 11 gt yr2 in 2002 2009 in antarctica the mass loss increased from 104 gt yr in 2002 2006 to 246 gt yr in 2006 2009 i e an acceleration of 26 14 gt yr2 in 2002 2009 the observed acceleration in ice sheet mass loss helps reconcile grace ice mass estimates obtained for different time periods

revisiting greenland ice sheet mass loss observed by grace in this paper we discuss a new method for determining mass time series for 16 hydrological basins representing the greenland system gs whereby we rely on gravity recovery and climate experiment grace mission data in the same analysis we also considered observed mass changes over ellesmere island baffin island iceland and svalbard ebis the summed contribution of the complete system yields a mass loss rate and acceleration of 252 28 gt yr and 22 4 gt yr2 between march 2003 and february 2010 where the error margins follow from two glacial isostatic adjustment gia models and three processing centers providing grace monthly potential coefficient sets we describe the relation between mass losses in the gs and the ebis region and found that the uncertainties in all areas are correlated the summed contribution of ellesmere island baffin island iceland and svalbard yields a mass loss rate of 51 17 gt yr and an acceleration of 13 3 gt yr2 between march 2003 and february 2010 the new regional basin reconstruction method shows that the mass loss within the southeastern basins in the gs has slowed down since 2007 while mass loss in western basins increased showing a progression to the north of greenland

observed atmospheric response to cold season sea ice variability in the arctic abstractthe relation between weekly arctic sea ice concentrations sics from december to april and sea level pressure slp during 1979 2007 is investigated using maximum covariance analysis mca in the north atlantic sector the interaction between the north atlantic oscillation nao and a sic seesaw between the labrador sea and the greenland barents sea dominates the nao drives the seesaw and in return the seesaw precedes a midwinter spring nao like signal of the opposite polarity but with a strengthened northern lobe thus acting as a negative feedback with maximum squared covariance at a lag of 6 weeks statistical significance decreases when slp is considered in the whole northern hemisphere but it increases when north pacific sic is included in the analysis the maximum squared covariance then occurs after 8 weeks resembling a combination of the nao response to the atlantic sic seesaw and the aleutian icelandic low seesaw like response to in phase sic changes in the bering and okhotsk seas w

land use changes and environmental dynamics in the upper rhone valley since neolithic times inferred from sediments in lac moras lac moras is a small lake located on a low elevation plateau in the upper rhone valley 304 m a s l the upper 5 m of accumulated sediment in the lake span 7500 years and offer a detailed record of environmental perturbations and land use history at a local scale a multiproxy analysis pollen charcoal and geochemical parameters led to the establishment of four periods of landscape dynamics the first evidence of human impacts was recorded during the neolithic and bronze age 6000 2700 cal bp these impacts were temporary and most likely affected small areas the second period in the iron age classical antiquity 2200 1900 cal bp appears to be a key period in which the intensification of anthropogenic pressure primarily grazing with localised areas of cultivation caused high intensity erosion events and deeply affected soil stability during the middle ages wheat rye and hemp cultures as well as tree farming walnut chestnut were intensively developed from 50 cal bp the 19th century on

oceanic isopycnal mixing by coordinate rotation abstract current numerical models of oceanic circulation differentiate between the eddy diffusion and viscosity transport along the geopotential horizontal and vertical directions only in order to model the effect of anisotropic turbulence as diffusive transport along and across density surfaces the isopycnal mixing tensor has been transformed from a diagonal second rank tensor in the isopycnal coordinate system to a tensor containing off diagonal elements in the geopotential coordinate system

north pacific climate response to freshwater forcing in the subarctic north atlantic oceanic and atmospheric pathways abstract sudden changes of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc are believed to have caused large abrupt climate changes over many parts of the globe during the last glacial and deglacial period this study investigates the mechanisms by which a large freshwater input to the subarctic north atlantic and an attendant rapid weakening of the amoc influence north pacific climate by analyzing four different ocean atmosphere coupled general circulation models gcms under present day or preindustrial boundary conditions when the coupled gcms are forced with a 1 sv sv 106 m3 s 1 freshwater flux anomaly in the subarctic north atlantic the amoc nearly shuts down and the north atlantic cools significantly the south atlantic warms slightly shifting the atlantic intertropical convergence zone southward in addition to this atlantic ocean atmosphere response all of the models exhibit cooling of the north pacific especially along the oceanic frontal zone consistent with paleoclimate recons

the parameterization of the planetary boundary layer in the ucla general circulation model formulation and results abstract a planetary boundary layer pbl parameterization for general circulation models gcms is presented it uses a mixed layer approach in which the pbl is assumed to be capped by discontinuities in the mean profiles both clear and cloud topped boundary layers are parameterized particular emphasis is placed on the formulation of the coupling between the pbl and both the free atmosphere and cumulus convection for this purpose a modified coordinate is introduced in which the pbl top and the lower boundary are both coordinate surfaces the use of a bulk pbl formulation with this coordinate is extensively discussed results are presented from a july simulation produced by the ucla gcm pbl related variables are shown to illustrate the various regimes the parameterization is capable of simulating

barotropic wave propagation and instability and atmospheric teleconnection patterns abstract a global barotropic model linearized about the 300 mb climatological mean january flow is perturbed by applying a series of localized forcings distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics structures which resemble the observed pacific north american and east atlantic teleconnection patterns noted by wallace and gutzler 1981 tend to recur in the responses similar patterns are found to result from the dispersion of isolated initial perturbations placed at a variety of locations in the tropics and midlatitudes it is shown that these structures are related to the most rapidly growing mode associated with barotropic instability of the zonally varying climatological basic state in the absence of damping this mode has an e folding time of about a week and a period close to 50 days in localized regions the instantaneous growth rates can be competitive with those of baroclinic instability these episodes of rapid local barotropic growth are interspersed with intervals in which the local

decadal variability of hydrography in the upper northern north atlantic in 1948 1990 we investigate the variability of the north atlantic subarctic gyre in recent decades from time series of station temperature and salinity decadal variability stronger at the surface is identified which exhibits vertical coherence over a layer deeper than the late winter mixed layer in the northwestern atlantic it corresponds to the layer with a component of water from the arctic ocean or from the canadian arctic the spatial coherence of the signal is investigated an empirical orthogonal function decomposition of lagged time series indicates that a single pattern explains 70 of the variance in upper ocean salt content corresponding to a propagating signal from the west to the northeast in the subarctic gyre the most likely interpretation is that the salinity signal originates in the slope currents of the labrador sea and is diffused advected eastward of the grand banks over the near western atlantic in the northwestern atlantic temperature fluctuations are strongly correlated to salinity fluctuations and are aligned along the average t s characteristics this signal suggests large variations in the outflow of fresh cold water in the slope current and is strongly correlated with ice cover a basin scale atmospheric circulation of weakened westerlies at 55 n weaker northwesterlies west of greenland and weaker southerlies over the central and eastern north atlantic is associated with the high salinity and warm water phase of the first principal component this circulation pattern leads fluctuations in the northeast atlantic and lags those in the northwestern part of the basin the wind indices also suggest that the fluctuations of the fresh water outflow occur during intervals of anomalously northerly winds either east of greenland 1965 1968 1969 or off the canadian archipelago 1983 1984

rapid barotropic sea level rise from ice sheet melting 1 sea level rise associated with idealized greenland and antarctic ice sheet melting events is examined using a global coupled ocean sea ice model that has a free surface formulation and thus can simulate fast barotropic motions the perturbation experiments follow the coordinated ocean ice reference experiment core version iii all regions of the global ocean experience a sea level rise within 7 8 days of the initialization of a polar meltwater input of 0 1 sv 1 sv 106 m3 s 1 the fast adjustment contrasts sharply with the slower adjustment associated with the smaller steric sea level evolution that is also connected with melt events the global mean sea level rises by 9 mm yr 1 when this forcing is applied either from greenland or antarctica nevertheless horizontal inter basin gradients in sea level remain for climate adaption in low lying coastal and island regions it is critical that the barotropic sea level signal associated with melt events is taken into consideration as it leads to a fast sea level rise from melting ice sheets for the bulk of the global ocean a linear relation between sea level rise and global meltwater input is further supported by experiments in which idealized melting occurs only in a region east or west of the antarctic peninsula and when melting rates are varied between 0 01 sv and 1 0 sv the results indicate that in ocean models that do not explicitly represent the barotropic signal the barotropic component of sea level rise can be added off line to the simulated steric signal

great salinity anomalies in the north atlantic abstract we revisited the great salinity anomaly of the 1970s gsa 70s dickson et al 1988 and documented the newly identified great salinity anomaly of the 1980s hence termed gsa 80s both propagated around the north atlantic in a similar fashion the advective mechanism initially proposed to explain the observed sequence of low salinity low temperature events during the gsa 70s apparently holds also for the gsa 80s the latter was successively observed in the west greenland current 1982 the labrador current 1983 the flemish pass 1984 near the charlie gibbs fracture zone 1984 1985 in the rockall channel 1985 south of iceland 1985 1988 in the north sea 1986 1987 norwegian sea 1987 1988 barents sea 1988 1989 and iceland sea 1989 1990 the advection speed of the gsa 80s seems to be greater than the one of the gsa 70s the 1980s anomaly reached the barents sea 6 to 7 years after peaking in the west greenland current while the 1970s anomaly traveled the same route in 8 to 10 years these anomalies however seem to be of different origin the gsa 70s was apparently boosted remotely by a freshwater sea ice pulse from the arctic via fram strait consequently the gsa 70s was accompanied by a large sea ice extent anomaly in the greenland and iceland seas which propagated into the labrador sea in contrast the gsa 80s was likely formed locally in the labrador sea baffin bay mainly because of the extremely severe winters of the early 1980s but supplemented with a possible contribution of the arctic freshwater outflow via the canadian archipelago facilitated by strong northerly winds which would have enhanced stability and ice formation this anomaly was also associated with a positive sea ice extent anomaly in the labrador sea baffin bay which however had no upstream precursor in the greenland sea thus the gsas are not necessarily caused solely by an increased export of freshwater and sea ice from the arctic via fram strait these results are corroborated by the early 1990s data when a new fresh cold anomaly was formed in the labrador sea and accompanied by a large positive sea ice extent anomaly the harsh winters of the early 1990s were however confined to the labrador sea baffin bay area while the atmospheric and oceanic conditions in the greenland iceland and irminger seas were normal the labrador sea baffin bay area appears therefore to play a key role in formation of gsas as well as in propagation of the gsas formed upstream a likely contribution of the enhanced canadian archipelago freshwater outflow to the gsa formation also seems to be significant two major modes of the gsa origin are thus identified remote generated by an enhanced arctic ocean freshwater export via either fram strait or the canadian archipelago and local resulting from severe winters in the labrador sea baffin bay both modes should be taken into account to model decadal variability of the coupled ocean ice atmosphere system in the north atlantic arctic basin

long term coordinated changes in the convective activity of the north atlantic the north atlantic is a peculiarly convective ocean the convective renewal of intermediate and deep waters in the labrador sea and greenland iceland sea both contribute significantly to the production and export of north atlantic deep water thus helping to drive the global thermohaline circulation while the formation and spreading of 18 degree water at shallow to intermediate depths off the us eastern seaboard is a major element in the circulation and hydrographic character of the west atlantic for as long as time series of adequate precision have been available to us it has been apparent that the intensity of convection at each of these sites and the hydrographic character of their products have been subject to major interannual change as shown by aagaard 1968 clarke et al 1990 and meincke et al 1992 for the greenland sea in the ows bravo record from the labrador sea eg lazier 1980 et seq and at the panulirus hydrostation s site in the northern sargasso off bermuda eg jenkins 1982 talley and raymer 1982 this paper reviews the recent history of these changes showing that the major convective centres of the greenland and labrador seas are currently at opposite convective extrema in our postwar record with vertical exchange at the former site limited to 1000 m or so but with labrador sea convection reaching deeper than previously observed to over 2300 m as a result greenland sea deep water has become progressively warmer and more saline since the early 70 s due to increased horizontal exchange with the arctic ocean through fram strait while the labrador sea water has become progressively colder and fresher over the same period through increased vertical exchange most recently convection has become deep enough there to reach into the more saline nadw which underlies it so that cooler but now saltier and denser lsw has resulted

volcanic eruptions large scale modes in the northern hemisphere and the el nino southern oscillation abstract the author analyzes the impact of 13 major stratospheric aerosol producing volcanic eruptions since 1870 on the large scale variability modes of sea level pressure in the northern hemisphere winter the paper focuses on the arctic oscillation ao and the north atlantic oscillation nao to address the question about the physical nature of these modes the hypothesis that the phase of the el nino southern oscillation enso may control the geographical extent of the dominant mode in the northern hemisphere is also investigated as well as the related possibility that the impact of the eruptions may be different according to the phase of enso the author finds that both the ao and the nao are excited in the first winter after the eruptions with statistical significance at the 95 level both the signal and the significance are larger for the nao than for the ao the excitation of the ao and the nao is connected with the excitation of a secondary mode which resembles an augmented pacific north ame

isopycnal mixing in ocean circulation models abstract a subgrid scale form for mesoscale eddy mixing on isopycnal surfaces is proposed for use in non eddy resolving ocean circulation models the mixing is applied in isopycnal coordinates to isopycnal layer thickness or inverse density gradient as well as to passive scalars temperature and salinity the transformation of these mixing forms to physical coordinates is also presented

the great salinity anomaly in the northern north atlantic 1968 1982 the widespread freshening of the upper 500 800m layer of the northern north atlantic which this paper describes represents one of the most persistent and extreme variations in global ocean climate yet observed in this century though a range of explanations have been advanced to explain this event including in situ changes in the surface moisture flux this paper describes the great salinity anomaly as largely though not entirely an advective event traceable around the atlantic subpolar gyre for over 14 years from its origins north of iceland in the mid to late 1960s until its return to the greenland sea in 1981 1982 the overall propagation speed around this subpolar gyre is estimated at about 3cm s 1 of the total salt deficit associated with the anomaly as it passed south along the labrador coast in 1971 1973 about 72 109 tonnes a deficit equivalent to about two thirds of this figure 47 109 tonnes ultimately passed through the faroe shetland channel to the barents sea arctic ocean and greenland sea during the mid 1970s possible effects on deep water formation and on the representativeness of historical section data are discussed

the generation of global rotational flow by steady idealized tropical divergence abstract tropical convective heating is balanced on the large scale by the adiabatic cooling of ascent the horizontal divergence of the wind above this heating may be viewed as driving the upper tropospheric rotational wind field a vorticity equation model is used to diagnose this relationship it is shown that because of the advection of vorticity by the divergent component of the flow the rossby wave source can be very different from the simple fd source often used in particular an equatorial region of divergence situated in easterly winds can lead to a rossby wave source in the subtropical westerlies where it is extremely effective this part of the source can be relatively insensitive to the longitudinal position of the equatorial divergence a divergence field which is asymmetric about the equator can lead to a quite symmetric rossby wave source for a steady frictionless flow the rossby wave source averaged over regions within closed streamfunction or absolute vorticity contours is under cert

the arctic oscillation signature in the wintertime geopotential height and temperature fields the leading empirical orthogonal function of the wintertime sea level pressure field is more strongly coupled to surface air temperature fluctuations over the eurasian continent than the north atlantic oscillation nao it resembles the nao in many respects but its primary center of action covers more of the arctic giving it a more zonally symmetric appearance coupled to strong fluctuations at the 50 hpa level on the intraseasonal interannual and interdecadal time scales this arctic oscillation ao can be interpreted as the surface signature of modulations in the strength of the polar vortex aloft it is proposed that the zonally asymmetric surface air temperature and mid tropospheric circulation anomalies observed in association with the ao may be secondary baroclinic features induced by the land sea contrasts the same modal structure is mirrored in the pronounced trends in winter and springtime surface air temperature sea level pressure and 50 hpa height over the past 30 years parts of eurasia have warmed by as much as several k sea level pressure over parts of the arctic has fallen by 4 hpa and the core of the lower stratospheric polar vortex has cooled by several k these trends can be interpreted as the development of a systematic bias in one of the atmosphere s dominant naturally occurring modes of variability

causes of decadal changes of the freshwater content in the arctic ocean abstractdecadal changes of the liquid freshwater content in the arctic ocean are studied with a suite of forward and adjoint model simulations adjoint sensitivities show that freshwater volume changes in the norwegian atlantic current north of the lofoten basin and a salinity maximum in the fram strait and in the canadian archipelago lead to an enhanced northward transport of freshwater the dynamical sensitivities indicate that stronger freshwater export from the arctic is related to an enhanced cyclonic circulation around greenland with an enhanced export through the canadian archipelago and a stronger circulation within the fram strait associated with this circulation around greenland is a large scale cyclonic circulation in the arctic cyclonic wind stress anomalies in the arctic ocean as well as over the nordic seas and parts of the subpolar atlantic are optimal to force the freshwater transport changes results from a simulation over the period 1948 2010 corroborate the result that arctic freshwat