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Non-annular, hemispheric signature of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation

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Abstract

Sensitivity experiments with an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) without a proper stratosphere are performed to locally force a North Atlantic oscillation (NAO)-like response in order to analyse the tropospheric dynamics involved in its hemispheric extent. Results show that the circulation anomalies are not confined to the North Atlantic basin not even within the first 10 days of integration, where the atmospheric response propagates downstream into the westerly jets. At this linear stage, transient-eddy activity dominates the emerging, regional NAO-like pattern while zonal-eddy coupling may add on top of the wave energy propagation. Later at the quasi-equilibrium nonlinear stage, the atmospheric response emphasizes a wavenumber-5 structure embedded in the westerly jets, associated with transient-eddy feedback upon the Atlantic and Pacific storm-tracks. This AGCM waveguided structure rightly projects on the observational NAO-related circumglobal pattern, providing evidence of its non-annular character in the troposphere. These findings support the view on the importance of the circumglobal waveguide pattern on the development of NAO-related anomalies at hemispheric level. It could help to settle a consensus view of the Arctic Oscillation, which has been elusive so far.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been partially supported by the CANON Foundation in Europe (Grant 2011-062). JG-S was partially supported by the H2020-funded MSCA-IF-EF DPETNA project (GA No. 655339). Thanks to Mashiro Watanabe and Masato Mori (AORI, University of Tokyo) for useful discussions in the early stages of this study. Thanks also to Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes (BSC, Spain) and Pablo Zurita-Gotor (UCM, Spain) for their help during the review process. Technical support at BSC (Computational Earth Sciences group) is sincerely acknowledged. The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their encouragement and helpful suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth Sciences Departmemt, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS), Barcelona, Spain

    J. García-Serrano

  2. Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (KNMI), De Bilt, The Netherlands

    R. J. Haarsma

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  1. J. García-Serrano
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Correspondence to J. García-Serrano.

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García-Serrano, J., Haarsma, R.J. Non-annular, hemispheric signature of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation. Clim Dyn 48, 3659–3670 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-016-3292-3

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