Abstract
A systematic analysis of the winter North Atlantic eddy-driven jet stream latitude and wind speed from 52 model integrations, taken from the coupled model intercomparison project phase 3, is carried out and compared to results obtained from the ERA-40 reanalyses. We consider here a control simulation, twentieth century simulation, and two time periods (2046–2065 and 2081–2100) from a twenty-first century, high-emission A2 forced simulation. The jet wind speed seasonality is found to be similar between the twentieth century simulations and the ERA-40 reanalyses and also between the control and forced simulations although nearly half of the models overestimate the amplitude of the seasonal cycle. A systematic equatorward bias of the models jet latitude seasonality, by up to 7°, is observed, and models additionally overestimate the seasonal cycle of jet latitude about the mean, with the majority of the models showing equatorward and poleward biases during the cold and warm seasons respectively. A main finding of this work is that no GCM under any forcing scenario considered here is able to simulate the trimodal behaviour of the observed jet latitude distribution. The models suffer from serious problems in the structure of jet variability, rather than just quantitiative errors in the statistical moments.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barnes EA, Hartmann DL (2010a) Testing a theory for the effect of latitude on the persistence of eddy-driven jets using CMIP3 simulations. Geophys Res Lett 37:L15801. doi:10.1029/2010GL044144
Barnes EA, Hartmann DL (2010b) Influence of eddy-driven jet latitude on North Atlantic jet persistence and blocking frequency in CMIP3 integrations. Geophys Res Lett 37:L23802 doi:10.1029/2010GL045700
Barnes EA, Hartmann DL (2010c) Dynamical feedbacks and the persistence of the NAO. J Atmos Sci 67:851–865
Barnes EA, Hartmann DL, Frierson DMW, Kidson J (2010) Effect of latitude on the persistence of eddy-driven jets. Geophys Res Lett 37:L11804. doi:10.1029/2010GL043199
Barnes EA, Hartmann DL (2011) Rossby wave scales, propagation, and the variability of eddy-driven jets. J Atmos Sci 68:2893–2908
Charney JG, Devore JG (1979) Multiple flow equilibria in the atmosphere and blocking. J Atmos Sci 36:1205–1216
de Szoeke S P, Xie S-P (2008) The tropical eastern Pacific seasonal cycle: assessment of errors and mechanisms in IPCC AR4 coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation models. J Clim 21:2573–2590
Deser S, Phillips A, Bourdette A, Teng H (2012) Uncertainty in climate change projections: the role of internal variability. J Clim 38:527–546
Frame THA, Ambaum MHP, Gray SL, Methven J (2011) Ensemble prediction of transitions of the North Atlantic eddy-driven jet. Q J R Meteorol Soc 137:1288–1297
Franzke C, Woollings T, Martius O (2011) Persistent circulation regimes and preferred regime transitions in the North Atlantic. J Atmos Sci 68:2809–2825
Hoskins BJ, Karoly DJ (1981) The steady linear response of a spherical atmosphere to thermal and orographic forcing. J Atmos Sci 38:1179–1196
Hannachi A, Stephenson DB, Sperber KR (2003) Probability-based methods for quantifying nonlinearity in the ENSO. Clim Dyn 20:241–256
Hannachi A, Jolliffe IT, Stephenson DB (2007) Empirical orthogonal functions and related techniques in atmospheric science: a review. Int J Climatol 27:1119–1152
Hannachi A (2007) Tropospheric planetary wave dynamics and mixture modeling: two preferred regimes and a regime shift. J Atmos Sci 64:3521–3541
Hannachi A (2010) On the origin of planetary-scale extratropical winter circulation regimes. J Atmos Sci 67:1382–1401
Hannachi A, Woollings T, Fraedrich T (2012) The North Atlantic jet stream: preferred positions, paths and transitions. Q J R Meteorol Soc. doi:10.1002/qj.959
Kidson J, Gerber EP (2010) Intermodel variability of the poleward shift of the austral jet stream in the CMIP3 integrations linked to biases in 20th century climatology. Geophys Res Lett 37. doi:10.1029/2010GL042873
Koo S, Robertson AW, Ghil M (2002) Multiple regimes and low-frequency oscillations in the Southern Hemisphere’s zonal-mean flow. J Geophys Res 107:4596
Lee S, Kim H-K (2003) The dynamical relationship between subtropical and eddy-driven jets. J Atmos Sci 60:1490–1503
Lin J (2008) The double-ITCZ problem in IPCC AR4 coupled GCMs: ocean-atmopshere feedback analysis. J Clim 20:4497–4525
Meehl GA et al (2007) Global climate projections. In: Solomon S et al (eds) Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 747–845
Monahan AH, Fyfe JC (2006) On the nature of zonal jet EOFs. J Clim 19:6409–6424
Palmer TN (1993) Extended-range atmospheric prediction and the Lorenz model. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 74:49–65
Reichler T, Kim J (2007) How well do coupled models simulate today’s climate. BAMS 89:303–311
Silverman BW (1981) Using kernel density estimates to investigate multimodality. J R Stat Soc 43:97–99
Sardeshmukh PD, Hoskins BJ (1985) Vorticity balances in the tropics during the 1982-83 El Niño-Southern Oscillation event. Q J R Meteorol Soc 111:261–278
Sardeshmukh PD, Sura P (2009) Reconciling non-Gaussian climate statistics with linear dynamics. J Clim 22:1193–1207
Scaife AA, Copsey D, Gordon C, Harris C, Hinton T, Keeley S, O’Neill A, Roberts M, Williams K (2011) Improved Atlantic winter blocking in a climate model. Geophys Res Lett 38:L23703. doi:10.1029/2011GL049573
Straus DM, Corti S, Molteni F (2007) Circulations regimes: chaotic variability versus SST-forced predictability. J Clim 20:2251–2272
Uppala SM, and Coauthors (2005) The ERA-40 re-analysis. Q J R Meteorol Soc 131:2961–3012
Wittman MAH, Charlton AJ, Polvani LM (2005) On the meridional structure of annular modes. J Clim 18:2119–2122
Woollings T, Blackburn M (2012) The North Atlantic jet stream under climate change, and its relation to the NAO and EA patterns. J Clim 25:886–902
Woollings T, Hannachi A, Hoskins BJ, Turner AG (2010a) A regime view of the North Atlantic Oscillation and its response to anthropogenic forcing. J Clim 23:1291–1307
Woollings T, Hannachi A, Hoskins BJ (2010b) Variability of the North Atlantic eddy-driven jet stream. Q J R Meteorol Soc 136:856–868
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and the WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP3 multi-model dataset. Support of this dataset is provided by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy. We also thank the European Centre for Medium Weather Forecasting, ECMWF, for providing the ERA-40 reanalyses. EAB is funded by a NOAA Climate and Global Change Fellowship through the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research Visiting Science Program.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hannachi, A., Barnes, E.A. & Woollings, T. Behaviour of the winter North Atlantic eddy-driven jet stream in the CMIP3 integrations. Clim Dyn 41, 995–1007 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1560-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-012-1560-4