Debashis Nath

Diverse Influences of ENSO on the East Asian-Western Pacific Winter Climate Tied to Different ENSO Properties in CMIP5 Models

The influence of El Nino‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the East Asian‐western Pacific (EAWP) climate in boreal winter is investigated in the phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) model results and then compared to that in the phase 3 (CMIP3) results. In particular, the role played by the differences among models in ENSO properties, including the amplitude and longitudinal extension of ENSO’s sea surface temperature (SST) pattern, is analyzed. Results show that an eastward shrinking of ENSO’s SST pattern leads to quite weak circulation and climatic responses over the EAWP regions in the models. On the contrary, a westward expansion of the SST pattern shifts the anomalous Walker circulation too far west. The resultant precipitation anomalies and lower-tropospheric atmospheric Rossby wave responses both extend unrealistically into the Indian Ocean, and the hemispheric asymmetry of the Rossby wave response is missing. All these features lead to unrealistic climatic impacts of ENSOover the EAWP regions.In contrasttothe abovetwocases,areasonablelongitudinalextensionof ENSO’s SST pattern corresponds to better ENSO teleconnections over the EAWP regions. Nevertheless, the atmospheric responses over the western Pacific are still located farther west than observed, implying a common bias of CMIP5 models. In this case, a larger amplitude of ENSO variability to some extent helps to reduce model biases and facilitate better climatic responses to ENSO in the EAWP regions. Compared with CMIP3 models, CMIP5 models perform better in representing ENSO’s impacts on the East Asian winter climate.

Planetary wave reflection and its impact on tropospheric cold weather over Asia during January 2008

Reflection of stratospheric planetary waves and its impact on tropospheric cold weather over Asia during January 2008 were investigated by applying two dimensional Eliassen-Palm (EP) flux and three-dimensional Plumb wave activity fluxes. The planetary wave propagation can clearly be seen in the longitude-height and latitude-height sections of the Plumb wave activity flux and EP flux, respectively, when the stratospheric basic state is partially reflective. Primarily, a wave packet emanating from Baffin Island/coast of Labrador propagated eastward, equatorward and was reflected over Central Eurasia and parts of China, which in turn triggered the advection of cold wind from the northern part of the boreal forest regions and Siberia to the subtropics. The wide region of Central Eurasia and China experienced extreme cold weather during the second ten days of January 2008, whereas the extraordinary persistence of the event might have occurred due to an anomalous blocking high in the Urals-Siberia region.

Relationship Between Soil Temperature in May over Northwest China and the East Asian Summer Monsoon Precipitation

This study investigates the relationship between the soil temperature in May and the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) precipitation in June and July using station observed soil temperature data over Northwest China from 1971 to 2000. It is found that the memory of the soil temperature at 80-cm depth can persist for at least 2 months, and the soil temperature in May is closely linked to the EASM precipitation in June and July. When the soil temperature is warmer in May over Northwest China, less rainfall occurs over the Yangtze and Huaihe River valley but more rainfall occurs over South China in June and July. It is proposed that positive anomalous soil temperature in May over Northwest China corresponds to higher geopotential heights over the most parts of the mainland of East Asia, which tend to weaken the ensuing EASM. Moreover, in June and July, a cyclonic circulation anomaly occurs over Southeast China and Northwest Pacific and an anticyclonic anomaly appears in the Yangtze and Huaihe River valley at 850 hPa. All the above tend to suppress the precipitation in the Yangtze and Huaihe River valley. The results also indicate that the soil temperature in May over Northwest China is closely related to the East Asia/Pacific (EAP) teleconnection pattern, and it may be employed as a useful predictor for the East Asian summer monsoon rainfall.

Dynamics of 2013 Sudden Stratospheric Warming event and its impact on cold weather over Eurasia: Role of planetary wave reflection.

In the present study, we investigate the impact of stratospheric planetary wave reflection on tropospheric weather over Central Eurasia during the 2013 Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) event. We analyze EP fluxes and Plumb wave activity fluxes to study the two and three dimensional aspects of wave propagation, respectively. The 2013 SSW event is excited by the combined influence of wavenumber 1 (WN1) and wavenumber 2 (WN2) planetary waves, which makes the event an unusual one and seems to have significant impact on tropospheric weather regime. We observe an extraordinary development of a ridge over the Siberian Tundra and the North Pacific during first development stage (last week of December 2012) and later from the North Atlantic in the second development stage (first week of January 2013), and these waves appear to be responsible for the excitation of the WN2 pattern during the SSW. The wave packets propagated upward and were then reflected back down to central Eurasia due to strong negative wind shear in the upper stratospheric polar jet, caused by the SSW event. Waves that propagated downward led to the formation of a deep trough over Eurasia and brought extreme cold weather over Kazakhstan, the Southern part of Russia and the Northwestern part of China during mid-January 2013.

Subtropical Potential Vorticity Intrusion Drives Increasing Tropospheric Ozone over the Tropical Central Pacific

Drawn from multiple reanalysis datasets, an increasing trend and westward shift in the number of Potential Vorticity intrusion events over the Pacific are evident. The increased frequency can be linked to a long-term trend in upper tropospheric equatorial westerly wind and subtropical jets during boreal winter to spring. These may be resulting from anomalous warming and cooling over the western Pacific warm pool and the tropical eastern Pacific, respectively. The intrusions brought dry and ozone rich air of stratospheric origin deep into the tropics. In the tropical upper troposphere, interannual ozone variability is mainly related to convection associated with El Niño/Southern Oscillation. Zonal mean stratospheric overturning circulation organizes the transport of ozone rich air poleward and downward to the high and midlatitudes leading there to higher ozone concentration. In addition to these well described mechanisms, we observe a long-term increasing trend in ozone flux over the northern hemispheric outer tropical (10–25°N) central Pacific that results from equatorward transport and downward mixing from the midlatitude upper troposphere and lower stratosphere during PV intrusions. This increase in tropospheric ozone flux over the Pacific Ocean may affect the radiative processes and changes the budget of atmospheric hydroxyl radicals.

Whether the decadal shift of South Asia High intensity around the late 1970s exists or not

This study compares the decadal means of the seasonal (June–July–August (JJA)) mean geopotential heights available from the NCEP1 and ERA-40 reanalysis data in the Northern Hemisphere. The interdecadal changes in the South Asia High (SAH) intensity derived from the reanalysis data are also compared with ground-based radiosonde observations and atmospheric model outputs. The JJA mean geopotential heights in the 1980s are distinctly larger than the 1970s in NCEP1 over most of the regions in the Northern Hemisphere, while no obvious difference is observed in ERA-40. The interannual variation of the SAH strength is very close in the two reanalysis data, so that it is appropriate to utilize the reanalysis data to study the interannual variation of SAH strength after removing the interdecadal trend. However, the discrepancy in SAH intensity between NCEP1 and ERA-40 mainly exists on the interdecadal time scale. The SAH intensity in the NCEP1 was close to that in the ERA-40 before the late 1970s but became remarkably stronger after the late 1970s, leading to a much larger decadal strengthening during the period 1970–1990. Based on the six radiosonde observation stations in the area of the SAH, the results indicate that the decadal reinforcing in the SAH strength occurs around the mid-1980s. Thus, NCEP1 may overestimate the decadal shift in the SAH intensity around the late 1970s, while ERA-40 may underestimate it. Much attention needs to be paid when we use the reanalysis data to study the decadal variability of the SAH intensity.

Impact of drought on agriculture in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, India

In this study, we investigate the spatiotemporal characteristics of drought in India and its impact on agriculture during the summer season (April–September). In the analysis, we use Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) datasets between 1982 and 2012 at the six-monthly timescale. Based on the criterion SPEI < −1, we obtain a map of the number of occurrences of drought and find that the humid subtropical Upper Middle Gangetic Plain (UMGP) region is highly drought-prone, with an occurrence frequency of 40%–45%. This UMGP region contributes at least 18%–20% of India’s annual cereal production. Not only the probability of drought, but the UMGP region has become increasingly drought-prone in recent decades. Moreover, cereal production in the UMGP region has experienced a gradual declining trend from 2000 onwards, which is consistent with the increase in drought-affected areas from 20%–25% to 50%–60%, before and after 2000, respectively. A higher correlation coefficient (−0.69) between the cereal production changes and drought-affected areas confirms that at least 50% of the agricultural (cereal) losses are associated with drought. While analyzing the individual impact of precipitation and surface temperature on SPEI at 6 month timescale [SPEI (6)] we find that, in the UMGP region, surface temperature plays the primary role in the lowering of the SPEI. The linkage is further confirmed by correlation analysis between SPEI (6) and surface temperature, which exhibits strong negative values in the UMGP region. Higher temperatures may have caused more evaporation and drying, which therefore increased the area affected by drought in recent decades.

Biases of the wintertime Arctic Oscillation in CMIP5 models

Distinct biases are found in the pattern and teleconnections of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) in 32 climate models that participate the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Compared with observations, the Pacific (Atlantic) center of AO is excessively strong (weak) in most of the 32 CMIP5 models, and the AO-related surface air temperature anomalies are generally weak over the Eurasian continent and North America. These biases are closely tied to the excessively strong linkage, which is marginal in observations, between AO and the North Pacific mode (NPM)—the leading variability of the North Pacific sea level pressure. It implies that the AO in CMIP5 models may be compounded with some regional mode over the North Pacific. Accordingly, a bias-correction method was proposed via correcting the AO index (AOI) to improve the diagnostic estimates of the AO teleconnections. The results suggest that the biases in the pattern and teleconnections of AO can be significantly reduced when the NPM variability is linearly removed from the AOI.

Impact of planetary wave reflection on tropospheric blocking over the Urals–Siberia region in January 2008

Planetary wave reflection from the stratosphere played a significant role in changing the tropospheric circulation pattern over Eurasia in mid-January 2008. We studied the 2008 event and compared with composite analysis (winters of 2002/2003, 2004/2005, 2006/2007, 2007/2008, 2010/2011 and 2011/2012), when the downward coupling was stronger, by employing time-lagged singular value decomposition analysis on the geopotential height field. In the Northern Hemisphere, the geopotential fields were decomposed into zonal mean and wave components to compare the relative covariance patterns. It was found that the wavenumber 1 (WN1) component was dominant compared with the wavenumber 2 (WN2) component and zonal mean process. For the WN1 field, the covariance was much higher (lower) for the negative (positive) lag, with a prominent peak around +15 days when the leading stratosphere coupled strongly with the troposphere. It contributed to the downward coupling due to reflection, when the stratosphere exhibited a partially reflective background state. We also analyzed the evolution of the WN1 anomaly and heat flux anomaly, both in the troposphere and stratosphere, during January–March 2008. The amplitude of the tropospheric WN1 pattern reached a maximum and was consistent with a downward wave coupling event influenced by the stratospheric WN1 anomaly at 10 hPa. This was consistent with the reflection of the WN1 component over Eurasia, which triggered an anomalous blocking high in the Urals–Siberia region. We further clarified the impact of reflection on the tropospheric WN1 field and hence the tropospheric circulation pattern by changing the propagation direction during and after the event.

Investigating the dominant source for the generation of gravity waves during indian summer monsoon using ground-based measurements

Over the tropics, convection, wind shear (i.e., vertical and horizontal shear of wind and/or geostrophic adjustment comprising spontaneous imbalance in jet streams) and topography are the major sources for the generation of gravity waves. During the summer monsoon season (June–August) over the Indian subcontinent, convection and wind shear coexist. To determine the dominant source of gravity waves during monsoon season, an experiment was conducted using mesosphere-stratosphere-troposphere (MST) radar situated at Gadanki (13.5°N, 79.2°E), a tropical observatory in the southern part of the Indian subcontinent. MST radar was operated continuously for 72 h to capture high-frequency gravity waves. During this time, a radiosonde was released every 6 h in addition to the regular launch (once daily to study low-frequency gravity waves) throughout the season. These two data sets were utilized effectively to characterize the jet stream and the associated gravity waves. Data available from collocated instruments along with satellite-based brightness temperature (TBB) data were utilized to characterize the convection in and around Gadanki. Despite the presence of two major sources of gravity wave generation (i.e., convection and wind shear) during the monsoon season, wind shear (both vertical shear and geostrophic adjustment) contributed the most to the generation of gravity waves on various scales.