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Time indices of the Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO) are often used to generate empirical forecasts of the global atmospheric circulation. Moist deep convection associated with the MJO initiates eastward-propagating Rossby waves that disperse into the midlatitudes. The background circulation then guides extratropical waves back into the tropics of the eastern Pacific Ocean. Previous works have shown that equatorial Rossby (ER) waves occur following intrusion of extratropical Rossby waves into the tropics. Westward-propagating ER waves and the MJO modulate the total convection. This convection modulates the zonal wind, which influences the location and existence of westerly wind ducts. These wind ducts, in turn, guide extratropical waves into the tropics. This paper demonstrates through a simple composite analysis that a simultaneous assessment of MJO and ER waves yields more information about the extratropical circulation during boreal winter than can be obtained based on either type of disturbance alone, or from a sum of the signals associated with the MJO and ER waves composited separately. This analysis, together with previous results, suggests a feedback loop between the MJO, these waves, and the extratropical circulation. Thus, assessment of the ER wave state during a particular phase of the MJO might yield better empirical prediction of the global atmospheric circulation that follows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fields of atmospheric motion vectors (AMVs) are routinely derived by tracking features in sequential geostationary satellite infrared, water vapor, and visible-channel imagery. While AMVs produced operationally by global data centers are routinely evaluated against rawinsondes, there is a relative dearth of validation opportunities over the tropical oceans-in particular, in the vicinity of tropical disturbances when anomalous flow fields and strongly sheared environments commonly exist. A field experiment in 2010 called Pre-Depression Investigation of Cloud-Systems in the Tropics (PREDICT) was conducted in the tropical west Atlantic Ocean and provides an opportunity to evaluate the quality of tropical AMVs and analyses derived from them. The importance of such a verification is threefold: 1) AMVs often provide the only input data for numerical weather prediction (NWP) over cloudy areas of the tropical oceans, 2) NWP data assimilation methods are increasingly reliant on accurate flow-dependent observation-error characteristics, and 3) global tropical analysis and forecast centers often rely on analyses and diagnostic products derived from the AMV fields. In this paper, the authors utilize dropsonde information from high-flying PREDICT aircraft to identify AMV characteristics and to better understand their errors in tropical-disturbance situations. It is found that, in general, the AMV observation errors are close to those identified in global validation studies. However, some distinct characteristics are uncovered in certain regimes associated with tropical disturbances. High-resolution analyses derived from the AMV fields are also examined and are found to be more reflective of anomalous flow fields than the respective Global Forecast System global model analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the response of the tropical hydrologic cycle to surface warming through the lens of large-domain cloud-system-resolving model experiments run in a radiative-convective equilibrium framework. Simulations are run for 55 days and are driven with fixed insolation and constant sea surface temparatures (SSTs) of 298 K, 300 K, and 302 K. In each experiment, convection organizes into coherent regions of large-scale ascent separated by areas with relatively clear air and troposphere-deep descent. Aspects of the simulations correspond to observed features of the tropical climate system, including the transition to large precipitation rates above a critical value of total column water vapor, and an increase in convective intensity with SST amidst weakening of the large-scale overturning circulation. However, the authors also find notable changes to the interaction between convection and the environment as the surface warms. In particular, organized convection in simulations with SSTs of 298 and 300 K is inhibited by the presence of a strong midtropospheric stable layer and dry upper troposphere. As a result, there is a decrease in the vigor of deep convection and an increase in stratiform precipitation fraction with an increase in SST from 298 to 300 K. With an increase in SST to 302 K, moistening of the middletroposphere and increase in lower-tropospheric buoyancy serve to overcome these limitations, leading to an overall increase in convective intensity and larger increase in upper-tropospheric relative humidity. The authors conclude that, while convective intensity increases with SST, the aggregate nature of deep convection is strongly affected by the details of the thermodynamic environment in which it develops. In particular, the positive feedback between increasing SST and a moistening upper troposphere found in the simulations, operates as a nonmonotonic function of SST and is modulated by a complex interaction between deep convection and the environmental relative humidity and static stability profile. The results suggest that projected changes in convection that assume a monotonic dependence on SST may constitute an oversimplification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes synoptic-scale trough-thinning processes using a filamentation time diagnostic. The filamentation time diagnostic is derived from the potential vorticity equation expressed in spherical coordinates in the horizontal plane and the isentropic coordinate in the vertical direction. The diagnostic is an accurate measure of stirring processes under the condition of “slowly varying velocity gradients.” Trough-thinning processes are analyzed for one tropical example and two midlatitude examples. The results indicate that the filamentation time for the tropical trough-thinning event is generally longer than those for the midlatitude trough events. In addition to the effects of stretching and shearing deformation, the filamentation time diagnostic contains the effects of divergence. For the calculation of filamentation time on isentropic surfaces in spherical coordinates, it is acceptable to ignore the curvature effects in the tropics; however, in both the midlatitudes and the tropics, isentropic divergence effects should be retained for improved accuracy. Combining an analysis of cross potential vorticity contour flows on isentropic surfaces with the filamentation time analysis gives a more complete description of the dynamics. The results show that the filamentation time diagnostic can serve as a useful aid in the analysis and prediction of trough thinning and cutoff-low formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the dynamical aspect of variational data assimilation in the tropics and the role of the background-error covariances in the observing system simulation experiments for the tropics. The study uses a model that describes the horizontal structure of the potential temperature and wind fields in regions of deep tropical convection. The assimilation method is three- and four-dimensional variational data assimilation. The background-error covariance model for the assimilation is a multivariate model that includes the mass–wind couplings representative of equatorial inertio-gravity modes and equatorial Kelvin and mixed Rossby–gravity modes in addition to those representative of balanced equatorial Rossby waves. Spectra of the background errors based on these waves are derived from the tropical forecast errors of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model. Tropical mass–wind (im)balances are illustrated by studying the potential impact of the spaceborne Doppler wind lidar (DWL) Atmospheric Dynamic Mission (ADM)-Aeolus, which measures horizontal line-of-sight (LOS) wind components. Several scenarios with two DWLs of ADM-Aeolus type are compared under different flow conditions and using different assumptions about the quality of the background-error covariances. Results of three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3DVAR) illustrate the inefficiency of multivariate assimilation in the tropics. The consequence for the assimilation of LOS winds is that the missing part of the wind vector can hardly be reconstructed from the mass-field observations and applied balances as in the case of the midlatitudes. Results of four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR) show that for large-scale tropical conditions and using reliable background-error statistics, differences among various DWL scenarios are not large. As the background-error covariances becomes less reliable, horizontal scales become smaller and the flow becomes less zonal, the importance of obtaining information about the wind vector increases. The added value of another DWL satellite increases as the quality of the background-error covariances deteriorates and it can be more than twice as large as in the case of reliable covariances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generally accepted view of the meridional circulation in the tropical east Pacific is that of a single deep overturning cell driven by deep convective heating in the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), similar to the zonal mean Hadley circulation. However, recent observations of the atmosphere from the tropical eastern Pacific have called this view into question. In several independent datasets, significant meridional return flows out of the ITCZ region were observed, not only at high altitudes, but also at low altitudes, just above the atmospheric boundary layer. This paper presents a theory and idealized simulations to understand the causes and dynamics of this shallow meridional circulation (SMC). Fundamentally, the SMC can be seen as a large-scale sea-breeze circulation driven by sea surface temperature gradients when deep convection is absent in the ITCZ region. A simple model of this circulation is presented. Using observed values, the sea-breeze model shows that the pressure gradient above the boundary can indeed reverse, leading to the pressure force that drives the shallow return flow out of the ITCZ. The Weather Research and Forecast Model (WRF) is used to simulate an idealized Hadley circulation driven by moist convection in a tropical channel. The SMC is reproduced, with reasonable similarity to the circulation observed in the east Pacific. The simulations confirm that the SMC is driven by a reversal of the pressure gradient above the boundary layer, and that the return flow is strongest when deep convection is absent in the ITCZ, and weakest when deep convection is active. The model also shows that moisture transport out of the ITCZ region is far greater in the low-level shallow return flow than in the high-altitude return flow associated with the deep overturning, and that a budget for water transport in and out of the ITCZ region is grossly incomplete without it. Much of the moisture carried in the shallow return flow is recycled into the boundary layer, but does not appear to contribute to enhanced cloudiness in the subtropical stratocumulus poleward of the ITCZ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the effect of a simple convection scheme on the zonally averaged tropical general circulation is examined within an idealized moist GCM to obtain broad classifications of the influence of convection on the Tropics. This is accomplished with a simplified convection scheme in the style of Betts and Miller. The scheme is utilized in a moist GCM with simplified physical parameterizations (gray radiation, with zonally symmetric, slab mixed layer ocean boundary conditions). Comparisons are made with simulations without a convection scheme [i.e., with large-scale condensation (LSC) only], with the moist convective adjustment (MCA) parameterization, and with various formulations and parameter sets with a simplified Betts–Miller (SBM) scheme. With the control run using the SBM scheme, the Tropics become quieter and less dependent on horizontal resolution as compared with the LSC or MCA simulations. The Hadley circulation mass transport is significantly reduced with the SBM scheme, as is the ITCZ precipitation. An important factor determining this behavior is the parameterization of shallow convection: without shallow convection, the convection scheme is largely ineffective at preventing convection from occurring at the grid scale. The sensitivities to convection scheme parameters are also examined. The simulations are remarkably insensitive to the convective relaxation time, and only mildly sensitive to the relative humidity of the reference profile, provided significant large-scale condensation is not allowed to occur. The changes in the zonally averaged tropical circulation that occur in all the simulations are understood based on the convective criteria of the schemes and the gross moist stability of the atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seasonal variation of the North Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC) in the tropical Atlantic Ocean is investigated by using a linear, one-layer reduced-gravity ocean model and by analyzing sea surface height (SSH) data from Ocean Topography Experiment (TOPEX)/Poseidon (T/P) altimeters. The T/P data indicate that the seasonal variability of the NECC geostrophic transport, between 3° and 10°N, is dominated by SSH changes in the southern flank of the current. Since the southern boundary of the NECC is located partially within the equatorial waveguide, the SSH variation there can be influenced considerably by the equatorial dynamics. Therefore, it is hypothesized that the wind stress forcing along the equator is the leading driver for the seasonal cycle of the NECC transport. The wind stress curl in the NECC region is an important but smaller contributor. This hypothesis is tested by several sensitivity experiments that are designed to separate the two forcing mechanisms. In the first sensitivity run, a wind stress field that has a zero curl is used to force the ocean model. The result shows that the NECC geostrophic transport retains most of its seasonal variability. The same happens in another experiment in which the seasonal wind stress is applied only within a narrow band along the equator outside the NECC range. To further demonstrate the role of equatorial waves, another experiment was run in which the wind stress in the Southern Hemisphere is altered so that the model excludes hemispherically symmetrical waves (Kelvin waves and odd-numbered meridional modes of equatorial Rossby waves) and instead excites only the antisymmetrical equatorial Rossby modes. The circulation in the northern tropical ocean, including the NECC, is affected considerably even though the local wind stress there remains unchanged. All these appear to support the hypothesis presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is designed to be an annual summary of the Eastern Hemisphere tropical cyclones of 1995. The tropical cyclone statistics presented are those of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Guam. The text focuses primarily upon the tropical cyclones that occurred in the western North Pacific during 1995; however, since the area of responsibility of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center covers the entire Eastern Hemisphere, brief summaries of the tropical cyclone activity within the north Indian Ocean, south Indian Ocean, and the southwest Pacific are also presented. Overall, 1995 was a relatively quiet year in the Eastern Hemisphere: the 22 tropical cyclones of the Southern Hemisphere were only one shy of the record low of 21, and for the first time since 1988 the number of tropical storms and typhoons in the western North Pacific was below normal. In the western North Pacific, there was a marked shift to the west of the preferred region for the genesis and development of tropical cyclones. This is consistent with the end of persistent large-scale circulation anomalies characteristic of the warm phase of the El Nino--Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the onset (during 1995) of weak ENSO cold-phase anomalies (i.e., La Nina conditions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]