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A study of quasi-millennial extratropical winter cyclone activity over the Southern Hemisphere

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Abstract

The winter extratropical cyclone activity in the Southern Hemisphere during the last one thousand years within a global climate simulation was analyzed by tracking cyclones, and then clustering them into ten clusters consecutively for each hundred years. There is very strong year-to-year variability for Southern Hemispheric winter extratropical cyclone numbers and larger variations on centennial time scale, more so than for its Northern Hemispherical counterparts. However, no obvious trend can be found. The mean tracks of clusters over the Southern Indian Ocean and near New Zealand shift poleward from the eleventh to the twentieth century while the clusters in the central Southern Pacific shift equatorward. Storm track clusters with largest deepening rates are found over the Southwestern Indian Ocean. In the twentieth century, rapidly deepening cyclones appear more often while long lifespan cyclones appear less frequently. The winter storm activity in the Southern Hemisphere is closely related to the Antarctic Oscillation. The cyclone frequency over the Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean can be associated with the Indian Ocean Dipole and El Nino-Southern Oscillation respectively.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Eduardo Zorita for providing the ECHO-G simulation data, his support with statistic routines, and helpful discussions. We appreciate Kevin I. Hodges’ help with his tracking algorithm which was used for our study. We also acknowledge the German Climate Computer Center (DKRZ) Hamburg for the provision of high performance computing platforms. This study is sponsored by Yunnan Applied Basic Research Project (Foundation No. 2014FD003). The authors appreciate two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Yunnan University, University Town, Chenggong County, Kunming, Yunnan, People’s Republic of China

    Lan Xia & Jian Wu

  2. Institute of Coastal Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Geesthacht, Germany

    Hans von Storch & Frauke Feser

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  1. Lan Xia
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Correspondence to Lan Xia.

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Xia, L., von Storch, H., Feser, F. et al. A study of quasi-millennial extratropical winter cyclone activity over the Southern Hemisphere. Clim Dyn 47, 2121–2138 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-015-2954-x

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