Takafumi Miyasaka

Structure and Formation Mechanisms of the Northern Hemisphere Summertime Subtropical Highs

Abstract Three-dimensional structure and dynamics of the climatological-mean summertime subtropical highs over the North Pacific and Atlantic (i.e., the Azores high) are investigated. Each of the observed surface highs is accompanied by a meridional vorticity dipole aloft, exhibiting barotropic and baroclinic structures in its northern and southern portions, respectively, in a manner dynamically consistent with the observed midtropospheric subsidence. Each of the highs develops over the relatively cool eastern ocean, where a pronounced near-surface thermal contrast exists with a heated landmass to the east. The authors demonstrate through numerical experiments that those highs can be reproduced in response to a local shallow cooling–heating couplet associated with this thermal contrast, although the upper-level response is somewhat underestimated. The model experiments suggest that the near-surface thermal contrasts associated with those surface subtropical highs over the Pacific and Atlantic can act as s...

A diagnostic study of future evaporation changes projected in CMIP5 climate models

It has been pointed out that climatological-mean precipitation-evaporation difference (P–E) should increase under global warming mainly through the increasing saturation level of moisture. This study focuses on evaporation changes under global warming and their dependency on the direct warming effect, on the basis of future projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). Over most of the tropical, subtropical and midlatitude regions, the direct contribution from surface temperature increase is found to dominate the projected increase in evaporation. This contribution is nevertheless offset partially, especially over the oceans, by contributions from weakening surface winds and increasing near-surface relative humidity. Greater warming of surface air than of the sea surface also acts to reduce surface evaporation, by reducing both the exchange coefficient and humidity contrast at the surface. Though generally of secondary importance, this contribution is the dominant factor over the subpolar oceans. Over the polar oceans, the effect of sea-ice retreat dominantly contributes to the evaporation increase in winter, whereas the reduced exchange coefficient and surface humidity contrast coupled with the sea-ice retreat account for most of the response during summertime. Over the continents, changes in the surface exchange coefficient, reflecting changes in soil moisture and vegetation among other factors, are important to modulate the direct effects of the warming and the generally reduced surface air relative humidity.

Structure and Mechanisms of the Southern Hemisphere Summertime Subtropical Anticyclones

Abstract The three-dimensional structure and dynamics of the climatological-mean summertime subtropical anticyclones in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) are investigated. As in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), each of the surface subtropical anticyclones over the South Pacific, South Atlantic, and South Indian Oceans is accompanied by a meridional vorticity dipole aloft, exhibiting barotropic and baroclinic structures in its poleward and equatorward portions, respectively, in a manner that is dynamically consistent with the observed midtropospheric subsidence. Their dynamics are also similar to their NH counterpart. It is demonstrated through the numerical experiments presented here that each of the SH surface anticyclones observed over the relatively cool eastern oceans can be reproduced as a response to a local near-surface cooling–heating couplet. The cooling is mainly due to radiative cooling associated with low-level maritime clouds, and the heating to the east is due to sensible heat flux over the dry, hea...

Key factors in simulating the equatorial Atlantic zonal sea surface temperature gradient in a coupled general circulation model

Causes of the coupled model bias in simulating the zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradient in the equatorial Atlantic are examined in three versions of the same coupled general circulation model (CGCM) differing only in the cumulus convection scheme. One version of the CGCM successfully simulates the mean zonal SST gradient of the equatorial Atlantic, in contrast to the failure of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 models. The present analysis shows that key factors to be successful are high skills in simulating the meridional location of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, the precipitation over northern South America, and the southerly winds along the west coast of Africa associated with the West African monsoon in boreal spring. Model biases in the Pacific contribute to the weaker precipitation over northern South America. Uncoupled experiments with the atmospheric component further confirm the importance of remote influences on the development of the equatorial Atlantic bias. Key Points: The zonal SST gradient of the equatorial Atlantic is well simulated in a CGCM; Key factors for the realistic simulation of the Atlantic SST are presented; Remote forcing from the Pacific may contribute to the Atlantic SST bias

Separation of Climatological Imprints of the Kuroshio Extension and Oyashio Fronts on the Wintertime Atmospheric Boundary Layer: Their Sensitivity to SST Resolution Prescribed for Atmospheric Reanalysis

AbstractMesoscale structures of the wintertime marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) as climatological imprints of oceanic fronts within the Kuroshio–Oyashio Extension (KOE) region east of Japan are investigated by taking advantage of high horizontal resolution of the ERA-Interim global atmospheric reanalysis data, for which the resolution of sea surface temperature (SST) data has been improved. These imprints, including locally enhanced sensible and latent heat fluxes and local maxima in cloudiness and precipitation in association with locally strengthened surface-wind convergence in the vicinities of SST fronts along the warm Kuroshio Extension and cool Oyashio to its north, are also identified in high-resolution satellite data. In addition to these mesoscale MABL features, meridionally confined near-surface baroclinic zones and zonally oriented sea level pressure (SLP) minima associated with the dual SST fronts are represented in ERA-Interim only in the period of high-resolution SST, but those impri...

Impacts of a warming marginal sea on torrential rainfall organized under the Asian summer monsoon.

Monsoonal airflow from the tropics triggers torrential rainfall over coastal regions of East Asia in summer, bringing flooding situations into areas of growing population and industries. However, impacts of rapid seasonal warming of the shallow East China Sea ECS and its pronounced future warming upon extreme summertime rainfall have not been explored. Here we show through cloudresolving atmospheric model simulations that observational tendency for torrential rainfall events over western Japan to occur most frequently in July cannot be reproduced without the rapid seasonal warming of ECS. The simulations also suggest that the future ECS warming will increase precipitation substantially in such an extreme event as observed in midJuly 2012 and also the likelihood of such an event occurring in June. A need is thus urged for reducing uncertainties in future temperature projections over ECS and other marginal seas for better projections of extreme summertime rainfall in the surrounding areas.

Interannual Modulations of Oceanic Imprints on the Wintertime Atmospheric Boundary Layer under the Changing Dynamical Regimes of the Kuroshio Extension

AbstractThe Kuroshio Extension (KE) fluctuates between its different dynamic regimes on (quasi) decadal time scales. In its stable (unstable) regime, the KE jet is strengthened (weakened) and less (more) meandering. The present study investigates wintertime mesoscale atmospheric structures modulated under the changing KE regimes, as revealed in high-resolution satellite data and data from a particular atmospheric reanalysis (ERA-Interim). In the unstable KE regime, a positive anomaly in sea surface temperature (SST) to the north of the climatological KE jet accompanies positive anomalies in upward heat fluxes from the ocean, surface wind convergence, and cloudiness. As revealed in the atmospheric reanalysis, these positive anomalies coincide with local lowering of sea level pressure, weaker vertical wind shear, warming and thickening of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL), anomalous ascent, and convective precipitation. In the stable KE regime, by contrast, the corresponding imprints of sharp SST...

Northern Hemisphere Extratropical Tropospheric Planetary Waves and their Low‐Frequency Variability: Their Vertical Structure and Interaction with Transient Eddies and Surface Thermal Contrasts

Climate Dynamic Geophysical Mon Copyright 2010 b 10.1029/2008GM Structure and dynamics of the Northern Hemisphere planetary waves, which cause geographically fixed longitudinal dependence to the climate, are examined through dynamical diagnoses applied tomodern global data sets. Summertime planetarywave signature in the Western Hemisphere includes surface maritime subtropical anticyclones, for which pronounced land-sea thermal contrasts across the west coasts of subtropical continents are important as thermal forcing. Its Eastern Hemisphere counterpart is dominated by continental-scale cyclone and anticyclone in the lower and upper troposphere, respectively, associated with Asian monsoon. Wintertime planetary waves are forced orographically and thermally in middle/subpolar latitudes, with pronounced land-sea thermal contrasts, including a contribution from diabatic heating along oceanic “storm tracks.” Wave activity thus generated propagates southeastward, maintaining an upper-level vorticity dipole over the Atlantic with an eddy-driven polar-front jet (PFJ) separated from a subtropical jet (STJ). Its Pacific counterpart is in the opposite sense with a predominant single jet with PFJ-STJ hybrid characteristics. Stationary circulation anomaly patterns that cause regional climate variability are strong in winter over the midlatitude ocean basins, extracting kinetic energy effectively from diffluent westerly jets and with feedback forcing by transient eddies along storm tracks. In the summertime Asian STJ exit, a stationary baroclinic anomaly pattern is dominant, maintaining itself by extracting potential energy from the jet and negating it by anomalous cumulus activity. Each of these patterns thus bears characteristics of a dynamical mode. Generation of shallow, cold surface anticyclones is discussed from a viewpoint of interaction of stationary Rossby waves with surface baroclinic zones.

Assessing the Importance of Prominent Warm SST Anomalies over the Midlatitude North Pacific in Forcing Large-Scale Atmospheric Anomalies during 2011 Summer and Autumn

AbstractSets of atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) experiments are conducted to assess the importance of prominent positive anomalies in sea surface temperature (SST) observed over the midlatitude North Pacific in forcing a persistent basin-scale anticyclonic circulation anomaly and its downstream influence in 2011 summer and autumn. The anticyclonic anomaly observed in October is well reproduced as a robust response of an AGCM forced only with the warm SST anomaly associated with the poleward-shifted oceanic frontal zone in the midlatitude Pacific. The equivalent barotropic anticyclonic anomaly over the North Pacific is maintained under strong transient eddy feedback forcing associated with the poleward-deflected storm track. As the downstream influence of the anomaly, abnormal warmth and dryness observed over the northern United States and southern Canada in October are also reproduced to some extent. The corresponding AGCM response over the North Pacific to the tropical SST anomalies is simil...

Multidecadal modulations of the low-frequency climate variability in the wintertime North Pacific since 1950

The North Pacific decadal variability (PDV) is known to manifest itself as two distinct spatial patterns. Observations since 1950 reveal that the wintertime PDV underwent notable modulations of their dominance in sea surface temperature (SST) variability and accompanying atmospheric variability. Until the 1980s, decadal SST variability was strongest along the subarctic frontal zone (SAFZ), the boundary between the warm Kuroshio and cool Oyashio waters. The SAFZ variability was highly correlated with decadal variability of the surface Aleutian Low but not simultaneously with tropical SST variability. Since the 1990s, however, this extratropical ocean-atmosphere variability has lost its predominance, taken over by SST variability in the subtropical frontal zone. It accompanies subtropical anticyclone variability, exhibiting significant anticorrelation with tropical SST variability. These long-term PDV modulations have remotely modulated temperature variability over Canada and Alaska. Similar PDV modulations are simulated in a centennial integration of a global climate model.