Jeffrey M. Chagnon

Cloud Banding and Winds in Intense European Cyclones: Results from the DIAMET Project

AbstractThe Diabatic Influences on Mesoscale Structures in Extratropical Storms (DIAMET) project aims to improve forecasts of high-impact weather in extratropical cyclones through field measurements, high-resolution numerical modeling, and improved design of ensemble forecasting and data assimilation systems. This article introduces DIAMET and presents some of the first results. Four field campaigns were conducted by the project, one of which, in late 2011, coincided with an exceptionally stormy period marked by an unusually strong, zonal North Atlantic jet stream and a succession of severe windstorms in northwest Europe. As a result, December 2011 had the highest monthly North Atlantic Oscillation index (2.52) of any December in the last 60 years. Detailed observations of several of these storms were gathered using the U.K.’s BAe 146 research aircraft and extensive ground-based measurements. As an example of the results obtained during the campaign, observations are presented of Extratropical Cyclone Fri...

Systematic model forecast error in Rossby wave structure

Diabatic processes can alter Rossby wave structure; consequently, errors arising from model processes propagate downstream. However, the chaotic spread of forecasts from initial condition uncertainty renders it difficult to trace back from root-mean-square forecast errors to model errors. Here diagnostics unaffected by phase errors are used, enabling investigation of systematic errors in Rossby waves in winter season forecasts from three operational centers. Tropopause sharpness adjacent to ridges decreases with forecast lead time. It depends strongly on model resolution, even though models are examined on a common grid. Rossby wave amplitude reduces with lead 5 days, consistent with underrepresentation of diabatic modification and transport of air from the lower troposphere into upper tropospheric ridges, and with too weak humidity gradients across the tropopause. However, amplitude also decreases when resolution is decreased. Further work is necessary to isolate the contribution from errors in the representation of diabatic processes.

Wave Response during Hydrostatic and Geostrophic Adjustment. Part I: Transient Dynamics

Abstract The adjustment of a compressible, stably stratified atmosphere to sources of hydrostatic and geostrophic imbalance is investigated using a linear model. Imbalance is produced by prescribed, time-dependent injections of mass, heat, or momentum that model those processes considered “external” to the scales of motion on which the linearization and other model assumptions are justifiable. Solutions are demonstrated in response to a localized warming characteristic of small isolated clouds, larger thunderstorms, and convective systems. For a semi-infinite atmosphere, solutions consist of a set of vertical modes of continuously varying wavenumber, each of which contains time dependencies classified as steady, acoustic wave, and buoyancy wave contributions. Additionally, a rigid lower-boundary condition implies the existence of a discrete mode—the Lamb mode— containing only a steady and acoustic wave contribution. The forced solutions are generalized in terms of a temporal Greens function, which repres...

Hydrostatic and Geostrophic Adjustment in a Compressible Atmosphere: Initial Response and Final Equilibrium to an Instantaneous Localized Heating

Abstract The initial and steady-state response of a compressible atmosphere to an instantaneous, localized heat source is investigated analytically. Potential vorticity conservation removes geostrophic and hydrostatic degeneracy and provides a direct method for obtaining the steady-state solution. The heat source produces a vertical potential vorticity dipole that induces a hydrostatically and geostrophically balanced cyclone–anticyclone structure in the final state. For a typical deep mesoscale heating, the net displacements required for the adjustment to the final steady state include a small, O(100 m) ascent of the core of the heated air with weak far-field descent and a large, O(10 km) outward/inward lateral displacement at the top/base of the heating. The heating initially generates available elastic and potential energy. The energy is then exchanged between kinetic, elastic, potential, and acoustic and gravity wave energy. In the final state, after the acoustic and gravity wave energy has dispersed,...

A Diabatically Generated Potential Vorticity Structure near the Extratropical Tropopause in Three Simulated Extratropical Cyclones

AbstractThe structure of near-tropopause potential vorticity (PV) acts as a primary control on the evolution of extratropical cyclones. Diabatic processes such as the latent heating found in ascending moist warm conveyor belts modify PV. A dipole in diabatically generated PV (hereafter diabatic PV) straddling the extratropical tropopause, with the positive pole above the negative pole, was diagnosed in a recently published analysis of a simulated extratropical cyclone. This PV dipole has the potential to significantly modify the propagation of Rossby waves and the growth of baroclinically unstable waves. This previous analysis was based on a single case study simulated with 12-km horizontal grid spacing and parameterized convection. Here the dipole is investigated in three additional cold-season extratropical cyclones simulated in both convection-parameterizing and convection-permitting model configurations. A diabatic PV dipole across the extratropical tropopause is diagnosed in all three cases. The ampl...

Mass Conservation and the Anelastic Approximation

Abstract Numerical anelastic models solve a diagnostic elliptic equation for the pressure field using derivative boundary conditions. The pressure is therefore determined to within a function proportional to the base-state density field with arbitrary amplitude. This ambiguity is removed by requiring that the total mass be conserved in the model. This approach enables one to determine the correct temperature field that is required for the microphysical calculations. This correct, mass-conserving anelastic model predicts a temperature field that is an accurate approximation to that of a compressible atmosphere that has undergone a hydrostatic adjustment in response to a horizontally homogeneous heating or moistening. The procedure is demonstrated analytically and numerically for a one-dimensional, idealized heat source and moisture sink associated with moist convection. Two-dimensional anelastic simulations compare the effect of the new formulation on the evolution of the flow fields in a simulation of the...

Wave Response during Hydrostatic and Geostrophic Adjustment. Part II: Potential Vorticity Conservation and Energy Partitioning

Abstract This second part of a two-part study of the hydrostatic and geostrophic adjustment examines the potential vorticity and energetics of the acoustic waves, buoyancy waves, Lamb waves, and steady state that are generated following the prescribed injection of heat into an isothermal atmosphere at rest. The potential vorticity is only nonzero for the steady class and depends only on the spatial and time-integrated properties of the injection. The waves contain zero net potential vorticity, but undergo a time-dependent vorticity exchange involving latent and relative vorticities. The energy associated with a given injection may be partitioned distinctly among the various wave classes. The characteristics of this partitioning depend on the spatiotemporal detail of the injection, as well as whether the imbalance is generated by injection of heat, mass, or momentum. Spatially, waves of a scale similar to that of the injection are preferentially excited. Temporally, an extended duration injection preferent...

Adjustment to injections of mass, momentum, and heat in a compressible atmosphere

This study compares the response to injections of mass, heat, and momentum during hydrostatic and geostrophic adjustment in a compressible atmosphere. The sensitivity of the adjustment to these different injection types is examined at varying spatial and temporal scales through analysis of the transient evolution of the fields as well as the partitioning of total energy between acoustic waves, buoyancy waves, Lamb waves, and the steady state. The effect of a cumulus cloud on its larger-scale environment may be represented as a vertical mass source/sink and a localized warming. To examine how the response to such injections may differ, injections of mass and heat that generate identical potential vorticity (PV) distributions and, hence, identical steady states, are compared. When the duration of the injection is very short (e.g., a minute or less), the injection of mass generates a very large acoustic wave response relative to the PV-equivalent injection of heat. However, the buoyancy wave response to these two injection types is quite similar. The responses to injections of divergent momentum in the vertical and horizontal directions are also compared. It is shown that neither divergent momentum injection generates any PV and, thus, there is no steady-state response to these injections. The waves excited by these injections generally propagate their energy in the direction of the injection. Consequently, an injection of vertical momentum is an efficient generator of vertically propagating, horizontally trapped, high-frequency buoyancy waves. Such waves have a short time scale and are therefore very sensitive to the injection duration. Analogously, an injection of divergent horizontal momentum is an efficient generator of horizontally propagating, vertically trapped low-frequency buoyancy waves that are relatively insensitive to the injection duration. Because of this difference in the response to horizontal and vertical injections of momentum, the response to the injection of an isolated updraft differs depending on whether a compensating horizontal inflow/outflow is also specified. This additional specification of inflow/outflow helps filter acoustic waves and encourages a stronger updraft that is not removed as rapidly by the buoyancy waves. This finding is relevant to the initialization of updrafts in compressible numerical weather prediction models. Injection of nondivergent momentum generates waves in the regions of convergence/divergence produced by the deflection of the current by Coriolis forces. The energy partitioning for such an injection is sensitive to the width and depth of the current relative to the Rossby radius of deformation, but the response is insensitive to the duration of injection for time scales shorter than several hours.

The Continuous Mutual Evolution of Equatorial Waves and the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation of Zonal Flow in the Equatorial Stratosphere

AbstractThe continuous mutual evolution of equatorial waves and the background quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is demonstrated using daily NCEP–U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reanalysis for the period from 1 January 1979 to 31 December 2010. Using a novel diagnostic technique, the phase speed, vertical tilting, and form stress of equatorial waves in the stratosphere are obtained continuously on a daily basis. The results indicate that, on top of a weak-amplitude annual-cycle signal, all of these wave properties have a pronounced QBO signal with a downward propagation that evolves continuously together with the background QBO. The analysis also highlights the potential role of wave-induced form stress in driving the QBO regime change.Dominant waves in the equatorial stratosphere propagate very slowly relative to the ground at all times, implying that their observed intrinsic phase speed evolution follows the background QBO nearly exactly but with opposite sign, as the established theory predicts. By reve...

Gravity Waves, Dynamical Resistance, and Forcing Efficiency

Abstract The effect of the dynamical response associated with high-frequency gravity waves on the total energy generated by imposed heating is examined in a 2D linear compressible model. The work performed by waves against a sustained forcing is defined as the dynamical resistance. The dynamical resistance is minimized and forcing efficiency maximized for basic-state and forcing configurations that yield a wave response whose phase varies minimally relative to the forcing. When generated against a forcing-relative background flow, waves that have a deep vertical scale relative to the forcing depth impose less resistance than waves of a shallow vertical scale. The efficiency of an ensemble of forcing elements is shown to differ significantly from that corresponding to an isolated forcing. If the forcing elements are all of the same sign (e.g., are all warmings), then the efficiency increases with decreasing separation between elements.