changes in occurrence of cold surges over east asia in association with arctic oscillation 1 it has been newly found that the occurrence of cold surges in east asia is significantly influenced by the arctic oscillation ao in the present study the events of cold surge are objectively determined based on several synoptic criteria and the phase dependency of its occurrences in association with the ao has been revealed during the negative ao phase the frequency of cold surge occurrence is relatively increased than that of neutral and positive ao phases the variation of upper level trough and jet stream over east asia and the siberian high in association of ao are suggested to explain the change of cold surge occurrences

observed connection between stratospheric sudden warmings and the madden julian oscillation 1 the effect of the madden julian oscillation mjo on the northern hemisphere wintertime stratospheric polar vortex and major mid winter stratospheric sudden warmings ssws is evaluated using a meteorological reanalysis dataset the mjo influences the region in the tropospheric north pacific sector that is most strongly associated with a ssw consistent with this ssws in the reanalysis record have tended to follow certain mjo phases the magnitude of the influence of the mjo on the vortex is comparable to that associated with the quasi biennial oscillation and el nino the mjo could be used to improve intra seasonal projections of the northern hemisphere high latitude circulation and in particular of the tropospheric northern annular mode at lags exceeding one month

boron isotopic geochemistry of the mcmurdo dry valley lakes antarctica abstract the geochemistry of boron was investigated in the ice covered lakes and glacier meltwater streams within taylor and wright valley of the mcmurdo dry valleys mcm antarctica in order to achieve a greater understanding of the source of boron to these aquatic systems and how in lake processes control boron concentration selected lake depths surface and bottom water and streams were analyzed for boron geochemistry boron stable isotope values in these waters span the range of 12 3 to 51 4 which corresponds to the variations from glacier meltwater streams to the hypolimnion of a highly evaporated hypersaline lake the data demonstrate that the major sources of b to the aquatic system are via terrestrial chemical weathering of aluminosilicates within the stream channels and a marine source either currently being introduced by marine derived aerosols or in the form of ancient seawater lakes fryxell hoare and upper waters of lake joyce which experience more terrestrial influence of aluminosilicate chemical weathering via glacial meltwater streams display a mixture of these two major sources while the source of b in the bottom waters of lake joyce appears to be primarily of marine origin lakes bonney and vanda and the blood falls brine have a marine like source whose 11b values have become more positive by mineral precipitation and or adsorption don juan pond displays a terrestrial aluminosilicate influence of a marine like source these hypersaline lake waters from antarctica are similar in 11b to other hypersaline lake waters globally suggesting that similar processes control their b geochemistry

ground motion prediction equation for small to moderate events at short hypocentral distances with application to induced seismicity hazards abstract the evaluation of seismic hazard from induced seismicity requires the development of ground motion prediction equations gmpes that are tuned to the key magnitude distance range for such applications i use events of m 3 6 at hypocentral distances less than 40 km drawn from the next generation attenuation west 2 nga west 2 database to develop a gmpe that accounts correctly for point source scaling in both magnitude and distance space for such events the developed gmpe is in demonstrable agreement with the nga west 2 database and with the predictions of a stochastic point source simulation model the database is sparse at close distances implying epistemic uncertainty of as much as a factor of 2 in ground motion amplitudes within 10 km of the hypocenter an important conclusion from this study is that the ground motion amplitudes for moderate induced events could be much larger near the epicenter than predicted by most of the nga west 2 gmpes the potential for large motions is a consequence of the shallow depth of induced events which places the earthquake fault only a short distance beneath the epicenter

annular modes in the extratropical circulation part i month to month variability the leading modes of variability of the extratropical circulation in both hemispheres are characterized by deep zonally symmetric or annular structures with geopotential height perturbations of opposing signs in the polar cap region and in the surrounding zonal ring centered near 458 latitude the structure and dynamics of the southern hemisphere sh annular mode have been extensively documented whereas the existence of a northern hemisphere nh mode herein referred to as the arctic oscillation ao has only recently been recognized like the sh mode the ao can be defined as the leading empirical orthogonal function of the sea level pressure field or of the zonally symmetric geopotential height or zonal wind fields in this paper the structure and seasonality of the nh and sh modes are compared based on data from the national centers for environmental prediction national center for atmospheric research reanalysis and supplementary datasets the structures of the nh and sh annular modes are shown to be remarkably similar not only in the zonally averaged geopotential height and zonal wind fields but in the mean meridional circulations as well both exist year round in the troposphere but they amplify with height upward into the stratosphere during those seasons in which the strength of the zonal flow is conducive to strong planetary wave mean flow interaction midwinter in the nh and late spring in the sh during these active seasons the annular modes modulate the strength of the lagrangian mean circulation in the lower stratosphere total column ozone and tropopause height over mid and high latitudes and the strength of the trade winds of their respective hemispheres the nh mode also contains an embedded planetary wave signature with expressions in surface air temperature precipitation total column ozone and tropopause height it is argued that the horizontal temperature advection by the perturbed zonal mean zonal wind field in the lower troposphere is instrumental in forcing this pattern a companion paper documents the striking resemblance between the structure of the annular modes and observed climate trends over the past few decades

asian jet waveguide and a downstream extension of the north atlantic oscillation abstract anomalous atmospheric fields associated with the north atlantic oscillation nao are analyzed on interannual and intraseasonal time scales in order to examine the extent to which the nao is a regional phenomenon analyses on the interannual time scale reveal that the nao signal is relatively confined to the euro atlantic sector in december while it extends toward east asia and the north pacific in february the difference is most clearly seen in the meridional wind anomaly which shows a wave train along the asian jet collocated with an anomalous vorticity source near the jet entrance diagnoses using a linear barotropic model indicate that this wave train is interpreted as quasi stationary rossby waves trapped on the asian jet waveguide and effectively excited by the anomalous upper level convergence over the mediterranean sea it is found that when the nao accompanies the mediterranean convergence mc anomaly most frequently seen in february the nao indeed has a much wider horizontal str

boreal winter links between the madden julian oscillation and the arctic oscillation abstract there is increasing evidence that the madden julian oscillation mjo modifies the mid to high latitude circulation and in particular appears to have a relationship to the leading mode of extratropical variability the arctic oscillation ao in this study new insights into the observed similarities between the mjo and the ao are explored it is shown that the eastward progression of the convectively active phase of the mjo is associated with a corresponding shift in the tendency and sign of the ao index moreover the ao and the mjo share several analogous features not only in the global circulation but also in surface temperature fields also the ao is linked to a pattern of eastward propagating mjo like variability in the tropics that is partially reproduced in free runs of the ncep climate forecast system cfs model finally it is shown that the structure of the ao as defined by the leading mode in the 1000 hpa geopotential height field is significantly altered based on the phase o

intraseasonal variation of the strength of the east asian trough and its climatic impacts in boreal winter abstractthe east asian trough eat is a distinct component of the boreal winter circulation whose strength corresponds to the amplitude of the northern hemispheric stationary waves in this study the mechanism and climatic impacts of the intraseasonal variations of the eat s strength are investigated through composite analysis and dynamical diagnostics the significant roles played by the low frequency rossby wave rw and synoptic transient eddy te are revealed before the peaks of strong eat events an upper tropospheric rw train propagates across northern eurasia and interacts with preexisting surface cold anomalies over central siberia this pattern intensifies the siberian high and causes rw convergence toward the eat leading to 30 of the eat s amplification directly via the rw induced feedback forcing meanwhile rw weakens the background baroclinicity and reduces te activities near the entrance region of the north pacific storm track the te induced feedback forcing leads to another 30 of th

influence of the madden julian oscillation on wintertime surface air temperature and cold surges in east asia 1 the variations of wintertime surface air temperature sat and the occurrences of cold surges over east asia in association with the madden and julian oscillation mjo are examined the mjo is defined as a combination of the two leading empirical orthogonal function modes of 850 and 200 hpa zonal winds and outgoing longwave radiation in the tropics the spatial pattern and magnitude of sat anomalies over east asia significantly change with respect to mjo phases composite analysis reveals that the mjo sat relationship is mainly affected by strong temperature advection in the lower troposphere in addition occurrences of cold surges are identified using objectively determined synoptic criteria and their relation to the mjo is analyzed most extreme cold surges occur when the mjo convection center is located over the indian ocean and it is suggested that mjo induced circulation anomalies may reinforce the amplification of normal cold surges to extreme cold surges

relationship between the arctic oscillation and cold surges over east asia abstract the present study reveals the changes in the characteristics of cold surges over east asia associated with the arctic oscillation ao based on circulation features cold surges are grouped into two general types wave train and blocking types the blocking type of cold surge tends to occur during negative ao periods that is the ao related polarity of the blocking type however the wave train type is observed during both positive and negative ao periods although the wave train features associated with negative ao are relatively weaker the cold surges during negative ao are stronger than those during positive ao in terms of both amplitude and duration the cold surges during positive ao in which the extent of effect is confined to inland china passes through east asia quickly because of weaker siberian high and aleutian low leading to short duration of these cold surges in contrast the cold surge during negative ao characterized by a well organized anticyclone cyclone couplet with high p

geographical dependence of upper level blocking formation associated with intraseasonal amplification of the siberian high abstract intraseasonal amplification events of the surface siberian high in winter are generally associated with blocking ridge formation in the upper troposphere composite analysis applied to the 20 strongest intraseasonal events of upper level anticyclonic anomalies at every grid point over siberia reveals that the blocking formation differs fundamentally between the east and west of the climatological upper level trough over the far east to the west what can be called wave train atlantic origin type is common where a blocking ridge develops from anomalies as a component of a quasi stationary rossby wave train propagating across the eurasian continent under modest feedback forcing from transient eddies to the east of the trough what can be called pacific origin type dominates where a blocking ridge forms in association with westward development of anticyclonic anomalies from the north pacific under stronger feedback forcing from the pacific storm track regardless of a particular type of bl

combined effects of the mjo and the arctic oscillation on the intraseasonal eastern china winter temperature variations abstractthe present study reveals that the madden julian oscillation mjo related temperature anomalies over east asia have notable differences among positive neutral and negative arctic oscilla

a synoptic and dynamical characterization of wave train and blocking cold surge over east asia through an agglomerative hierarchical clustering method cold surges over east asia are classified into two distinct types based on the spatial pattern of the geopotential height anomalies at 300 hpa one is the wave train type that is associated with developing large scale waves across the eurasian continent the other is the blocking type whose occurrence accompanies subarctic blocking during the wave train cold surge growing baroclinic waves induce a southeastward expansion of the siberian high and strong northerly winds over east asia blocking cold surge on the other hand is associated with a southward expansion of the siberian high and northeasterly winds inherent to a height dipole consisting of the subarctic blocking and the east asian coastal trough the blocking cold surge tends to be more intense and last longer compared to the wave train type the wave train cold surge is associated with the formation of a negative upper tropospheric height anomaly southeast of greenland approximately 12 days before the surge occurrence further analysis of isentropic potential vorticity reveals that this height anomaly could originate from the lower stratosphere over the north atlantic cold surge of the blocking type occurs with an amplifying positive geopotential and a negative potential vorticity anomaly over the arctic and the northern eurasia in stratosphere these anomalies resemble the stratospheric signature of a negative phase of the arctic oscillation this stratospheric feature is further demonstrated by the observation that the blocking type cold surge occurs more often when the arctic oscillation is in its negative phase

the global atmospheric circulation response to tropical diabatic heating associated with the madden julian oscillation during northern winter abstractthe detailed dynamical mechanisms of the upper tropospheric circulation response to the madden julian oscillation mjo convection are examined by integrating a primitive equation model a series of initial value calculations with the climatological boreal winter background flow forced by the mjo like thermal forcing successfully capture the key aspects of the observed circulation response to the mjo convection this suggests that a large fraction of mjo related circulation anomalies are direct responses to tropical heating in both the tropics and extratropics and can be largely explained by linear dynamics it is found that mjo like dipole heatings not only intensify tropical upper tropospheric anomalies but also weaken them at certain regions because of the interaction between equatorial kelvin and rossby waves the rossby wave train primarily excited by horizontal divergence of upper level perturbation flow propagates northeastward and then heads back to the equator in this way rossby wave act

mechanisms of intraseasonal amplification of the cold siberian high mechanisms of intraseasonal amplification of the siberian high are investigated on the basis of composite anomaly evolution for its strongest events at each of the grid points over siberia at each location the amplification of the surface high is associated with formation of a blocking ridge in the upper troposphere over central and western siberia what may be called wave train atlantic origin type is common where a blocking ridge forms as a component of a quasi stationary rossby wave train propagating across the eurasian continent a cold air outbreak follows once anomalous surface cold air reaches the northeastern slope of the tibetan plateau it is found through the potential vorticity pv inversion technique that interaction between the upperlevel stationary rossby wave train and preexisting surface cold anomalies is essential for the strong amplification of the surface high upper level pv anomalies associated with the wave train reinforce the cold anticyclonic anomalies at the surface by inducing anomalous cold advection that counteracts the tendency of the thermal anomalies themselves to migrate eastward as surface thermal rossby waves the surface cold anomalies thus intensified in turn act to induce anomalous vorticity advection aloft that reinforces the blocking ridge and cyclonic anomalies downstream of it that constitute the propagating wave train the baroclinic development of the anomalies through this vertical coupling is manifested as a significant upward flux of wave activity emanating from the surface cold anomalies which may be interpreted as dissipative destabilization of the incoming external rossby waves

on the three dimensional propagation of stationary waves abstract a locally applicable nonzonally averaged conservation relation is derived for quasi geostrophic stationary waves on a zonal flow a generalization of the eliassen palm relation the flux which appears in this relation constitutes it is argued a useful diagnostic of the three dimensional propagation of stationary wave activity this is illustrated by application to a simple theoretical model of a forced rossby wave train and to a northern hemisphere winter climatology results of the latter procedure suggest that the major forcing of the stationary wave field derives from the orographic effects of the tibetan plateau and from nonorographic effects diabatic heating and or interaction with transient eddies in the western north atlantic and north pacific oceans and siberia no evidence is found in the data for wave trains of tropical origin forcing by the orographic effects of the rocky mountains seems to be of secondary importance

the interaction of the madden julian oscillation and the arctic oscillation abstract tropical and extratropical interactions on the intraseasonal time scale are studied in the context of the arctic oscillation ao and the madden julian oscillation mjo to simplify the discussion a high low mjo phase is defined as strong suppressed convective activity over the indian ocean in the northern hemisphere nh winter season a high low ao phase is found more likely coupled with a high low mjo phase based on the regressed patterns and composites of various dynamical fields and quantities possible mechanisms linking the ao and the mjo are examined the analysis indicates that the mjo influence on extratropical circulations seems more evident than the ao influence on tropical circulations the mjo interacts with the ao through meridional dispersion of rossby waves in the pacific sector the geopotential height anomaly center over the north pacific associated with the mjo can either reinforce or offset the ao pacific action center as a result the ao pattern can be greatly a

an analysis of the large scale climate anomalies associated with the snowstorms affecting china in january 2008 abstract extraordinarily frequent and long lasting snowstorms affected china in january 2008 causing above normal precipitation below normal temperature and severe icing conditions over central southern china these snowstorms were closely linked to the change in the middle east jet stream mejs which intensified and shifted southeastward the change in mejs was accompanied by southeastward shifts of the ridge and the trough over europe and western asia the intensified mejs also strengthened the trough embedded in the southern branch of the subtropical westerlies over the southern tibetan plateau enhancing the water vapor transport from western asia and the bay of bengal to china in the meantime the subtropical western pacific high swph was stronger and its ridgeline was farther north than normal the anomalous high slowed down the eastward propagation of weather systems to the pacific and favored convergence of water vapor over central southern china the mejs is usually strong when the arctic

the global response to tropical heating in the madden julian oscillation during the northern winter a life cycle of the madden julian oscillation mjo was constructed based on 21 years of outgoing long wave radiation data regression maps of ncep ncar reanalysis data for the northern winter show statistically significant upper tropospheric equatorial wave patterns linked to the tropical convection anomalies and extratropical wave patterns over the north pacific north america the atlantic the southern ocean and south america to assess the cause of the circulation anomalies a global primitive equation model was initialized with the observed three dimensional 3d winter climatological mean flow and forced with a time dependent heat source derived from the observed mjo anomalies a model mjo cycle was constructed from the global response to the heating and both the tropical and extratropical circulation anomalies generally matched the observations well the equatorial wave patterns are established in a few days while it takes approximately two weeks for the extratropical patterns to appear the model response is robust and insensitive to realistic changes in damping and basic state the model tropical anomalies are consistent with a forced equatorial rossby kelvin wave response to the tropical mjo heating although it is shifted westward by approximately 20 longitude relative to observations this may be due to a lack of damping processes cumulus friction in the regions of convective heating once this shift is accounted for the extratropical response is consistent with theories of rossby wave forcing and dispersion on the climatological flow and the pattern correlation between the observed and modelled extratropical flow is up to 0 85 the observed tropical and extratropical wave patterns account for a significant fraction of the intraseasonal circulation variance and this reproducibility as a response to tropical mjo convection has implications for global medium range weather prediction copyright 2004 royal meteorological society

a new look at the midlatitude mjo teleconnection in the northern hemisphere winter the midlatitude to madden julian mjo teleconnection in the northern hemisphere wintertime was investigated using twenty years of outgoing long wave radiation and national center for atmospheric research national centers for environmental prediction re analysis data it is revealed through empirical orthogonal functions and regression analyses that the tropical upper level divergence convergence associated with enhanced reduced tropical convection has a subtropical counterpart of upper level convergence divergence as the convective region of mjo moves eastward from the indian ocean to the western pacific the divergent circulation connecting the tropics and subtropics moves eastward from an analysis of vertical motion diagnosed by the generalized omega equation it was revealed that the position of the subtropical rossby gyres of the mjo with respect to the asian pacific jet was the most important factor affecting the existence of the localized divergence convergence and associated lower level vertical motion in the subtropics as the subtropical rossby gyres pass by the longitudinal position of the asian pacific jet vertical motion occurs to meet the balance required by quasi geostrophic theory since this anomalous vertical motion is large enough to cause convection at that region the diabatic heating process reinforces the vertical motion furthermore other dynamical processes neglected in quasi geostrophic theory are activated and contribute to the vertical motion balancing the diabatic heating as a result of the vertical motion near the jet entrance region in the subtropics the vorticity advection by vertical wind and the tilting of vorticity become important since these two terms are similar in shape and magnitude they reinforce each other during the development phase of the midlatitude mjo teleconnection combining these two terms we define the baroclinic jet source bjs in order to evaluate the bjs as a source for the midlatitude mjo teleconnection a numerical experiment is carried out the linear barotropic model is forced by only two terms yet the model captured clearly the main feature of the midlatitude mjo teleconnection copyright 2006 royal meteorological society

an observed connection between the north atlantic oscillation and the madden julian oscillation abstract based on the bivariate madden julian oscillation mjo index defined by wheeler and hendon and 25 yr 1979 2004 of pentad data the association between the north atlantic oscillation nao and the mjo on the intraseasonal time scale during the northern hemisphere winter season is analyzed time lagged composites and probability analysis of the nao index for different phases of the mjo reveal a statistically significant two way connection between the nao and the tropical convection of the mjo a significant increase of the nao amplitude happens about 5 15 days after the mjo related convection anomaly reaches the tropical indian ocean and western pacific region the development of the nao is associated with a rossby wave train in the upstream pacific and north american region in the atlantic and african sector there is an extratropical influence on the tropical intraseasonal variability certain phases of the mjo are preceded by the occurrence of strong naos a significant change of upper zonal

another look at influences of the madden julian oscillation on the wintertime east asian weather 1 as one of the major predictability sources on an intraseasonal time scale the madden julian oscillation mjo exerts a profound influence on the subseasonal forecast of the east asian ea surface air temperature sat and precipitation in this study we examine the direct link of the mjo with the ea sat and precipitation and its dynamical mechanism to represent the mjo we perform an empirical orthogonal function eof analysis on pentad outgoing longwave radiation olr over 20 s 20 n 60 e 150 w the eof1 mode is mostly characterized by a single convection center near the maritime continent 90 150 e whereas the eof2 mode has an east west dipole structure with enhanced convection over the eastern indian ocean and suppressed convective activities over the tropical western pacific at the same pentad of a positive eof1 phase large areas of cold anomalies with reduced precipitation emerge in the ea region north of 20 n and persist through two pentads later at the same pentad of a positive eof2 phase sat and precipitation exhibit a zonal dipole pattern with cold and dry anomalies covering the ea region west of 120 e and warm and wet anomalies to the east these dipole anomalies in sat and precipitation systematically move eastward in the next two pentads a linearized global primitive equation model is utilized to assess the cause of the intraseasonal variability in sat and precipitation over east asia associated with the tropical heating of the mjo the model responses to heating sources that mimic the eof1 and eof2 olr patterns match well the general features of the observed circulation anomalies under forcing of a positive phase of the eof1 pattern strengthened local hadley cell or monsoon circulations within 90 e 150 e are reproduced with anomalous northerly winds and dry anomalies prevailing in the lower troposphere over east asia the processes that influence east asia are mainly associated with intraseasonal changes in local hadley circulation and the northern hemisphere branch of the equatorially trapped rossby wave gyres forced by the mjo heating

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

eddy zonal flow feedback in the northern hemisphere winter abstract the variability of the zonal mean zonal wind in the northern hemisphere winter december march is studied using eof analysis and momentum budget diagnostics of ncep ncar reanalysis data 1976 2001 the leading eof of the zonal mean zonal wind is well separated from the remaining eofs and represents the north south movement of the midlatitude westerlies analysis of the momentum budget shows that a positive feedback between the zonal mean wind anomalies and the eddy momentum fluxes selects the leading eof of midlatitude variability like the southern hemisphere the baroclinic eddies reinforce the zonal wind anomalies while external rossby waves damp the wind anomalies in the northern hemisphere the quasi stationary eddies also reinforce the zonal wind anomalies but the baroclinic eddies are most important for the positive eddy zonal flow feedback the observations support the following feedback mechanisms 1 above normal baroclinic wave activity is generated in the region of enhanced wester