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Multi-timescale modulation of North Pacific Victoria mode on Central Asian vortices causing heavy snowfall

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Abstract

Heavy snowfall is a critical part of hydrological systems and has frequently occurred over Central Asia in recent three decades. The study focuses on the dominant synoptic circulation pattern of heavy snowfall, Central Asian vortices (CAVs), to explore the multi-timescale features and possible influencing factors during cold seasons. The frequency of CAVs in cold seasons shows the “midwinter suppression-like” pattern, which is high in late autumn and early spring but low in winter. The distribution of CAVs is mainly concentrated in the north of Kazakhstan and from the Caspian Sea to the Lake Balkhash, which has caused increased intensity and affected areas of heavy snowfall since the 1980s. The background circulation of CAVs is related to various forcing factors, among which the most important are the North Pacific Victoria mode (VM) and midlatitude North Atlantic anomaly (MNA). VM could stimulate anomalous circumglobal wave train from North Pacific to Central Asia, thereby strengthening cyclonic anomalies over northwestern Central Asia and providing conducive conditions for CAV development. During this process, MNA plays a role in replenishing the wave energy for the circumglobal wave train over North Atlantic and helps the occurrence of CAV heavy snowfall as well. On the shorter timescale, CAVs are modulated by the intraseasonal variation of VM. Within 2.5 weeks before CAV heavy snowfall days, the wave train from North Pacific connects with the downstream wave train, which leads to anomalous wave energy converging in Central Asia and favors the formation of CAVs and related heavy snowfall.

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Data availability

Climate Prediction Center (CPC) Global Unified Gauge-Based Analysis of Daily Precipitation compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is available at ftp://ftp.cdc.noaa.gov/Datasets/cpc_global_precip/. The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) Daily Precipitation Analysis Climate Data Record is available at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/global-precipitation-climatology-project-gpcp-daily/access/. The TRMM 3B42-V7 daily precipitation data could be downloaded at https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/TRMM_3B42_Daily_7/summary?keywords=TRMM. The ERA-Interim daily data were obtained from https://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/data/interim-full-daily/levtype=pl/. The NOAA Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature V2 dataset is available at https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.oisst.v2.html. The NOAA Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature V2 high resolution dataset was downloaded from https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.oisst.v2.highres.html.

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Acknowledgements

This research was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41975083; 41975115). The authors thank the four anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions which help improve the quality of the manuscript substantially and the Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology High Performance Computing Center for providing computational resources.

Funding

This research was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41975083; 41975115).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education (KLME) /Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environment Change (ILCEC)/ Collaborative Innovation Center On Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters (CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Zhiheng Chen, Jie Zhang, Shuangshuang Li & Miaomiao Niu

  2. School of Physical Science and Technology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China

    Qianrong Ma

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  1. Zhiheng Chen
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Chen, Z., Zhang, J., Ma, Q. et al. Multi-timescale modulation of North Pacific Victoria mode on Central Asian vortices causing heavy snowfall. Clim Dyn 60, 687–704 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-022-06350-w

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