Journal ArticleDOI
The role of latent heating in atmospheric blocking dynamics: a global climatology
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In this article, the role of diabatic processes, in particular the release of latent heating in strongly ascending airstreams, play in the dynamics and spatio-temporal variability of blocking in a detailed 38-year global climatological analysis.Abstract:
Atmospheric blocking represents an important aspect of the mid-latitude weather variability, but the different processes contributing to its formation and maintenance are not yet fully understood. This study investigates the role that diabatic processes, in particular the release of latent heating in strongly ascending airstreams, play in the dynamics and spatio-temporal variability of blocking in a detailed 38-year global climatological analysis. The results show that the formation and (re-)intensification of blocking are often preceded by latent heating connected to upstream baroclinic developments. While the importance of latent heating varies considerably between individual blocking events and different regions, in particular between ocean and continents, latent heating is generally most important during onset and in more intense and larger blocks. The episodic nature of latent heating during the blocking life cycle, associated with a series of transient cyclones approaching the blocking, can contribute to both the high- (fast onset and fluctuation in intensity and size) and low-frequency (maintenance and quasi-stationarity during maturation phase) properties of blocking anticyclones and provide the required flow amplification in addition to dry-dynamical interaction between synoptic eddies and blocking. This amplification results from a combination of the direct injection of anticyclonic air into the upper-troposphere within cross-isentropic ascending airstreams, setting up large-scale anticyclonic PV anomalies, and the advection of PV by the enhanced divergent outflow at the tropopause (indirect effect). This divergent outflow on the western flank of the blocking anticyclone interacts with the upper-level PV gradient and leads to a westward amplification of the ridge, diminishing the tendency for dissipation and the eastward advection by the background flow, thus contributing to blocking stationarity. Taking into account such diabatic mechanisms in blocking dynamics will be important to improve predictions of blocking and assess future changes in the extratropical large-scale circulation.read more
Citations
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From CMIP3 to CMIP6: Northern Hemisphere Atmospheric Blocking Simulation in Present and Future Climate
Paolo Davini,Fabio D'Andrea +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, a comprehensive analysis of the representation of winter and summer Northern Hemisphere atmospheric blocking in global climate simulations in both present and future climate is presented, and three generations of climate models are considered: CMIP3 (2007), CMIP5 (2012), and CMIP6 (2019).
Journal ArticleDOI
Accelerated western European heatwave trends linked to more-persistent double jets over Eurasia
Journal ArticleDOI
Atmospheric blocking and weather extremes over the Euro-Atlantic sector – a review
Olivia Martius,Stephan Pfahl,Alexandre M. Ramos,Joaquim G. Pinto,Pedro Sousa,Kåre B. Jørgensen,Lihua Liu +6 more
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors highlight several types of weather extremes occurring in Europe in connection with a particular atmospheric flow pattern, known as atmospheric blocking, and assess the predictability of extreme events associated with blocking and links to climate change.
Journal ArticleDOI
The sensitivity of atmospheric blocking to upstream latent heating – numerical experiments
TL;DR: In this article, the effect of diabatic heating on the formation and maintenance of anticyclonic circulation anomalies has been investigated, and it is shown that removing diabatically heating in clouds upstream of the blocking ants has substantial effects on the upper-tropospheric circulation.
Atmospheric blocking as a traffic jam in the jet stream
Noboru Nakamura,S. Y. Huang +1 more
TL;DR: A close analogy between blocking and traffic congestion on a highway is demonstrated by using meteorological data and it is shown that blocking and Traffic Congestion can be described by a common mathematical theory.
References
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Multiple Flow Equilibria in the Atmosphere and Blocking
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