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Arctic Oscillation and Antarctic Oscillation in Internal Atmospheric Variability with an Ensemble AGCM Simulation

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Arctic Oscillation and Antarctic Oscillation in Internal Atmospheric Variability with an Ensemble AGCM Simulation ADVANCES IN ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, VOL. 24, NO. 1, 2007, 152–162 Arctic Oscillation and Antarctic Oscillation in Internal Atmospheric Variability with an Ensemble AGCM Simulation ∗1 1,2 3 Ó Ä LU Riyu (ö ), LI Ying ( ), and Buwen DONG 1State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG) and Center for Monsoon System Research (CMSR), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029 2Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039 3National Centre for Atmospheric Science-Climate (NCAS) Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom (Received 5 January 2006; revised 3 July 2006) ABSTRACT In this study, we investigated the features of Arctic Oscillation (AO) and Antarctic Oscillation (AAO), that is, the annular modes in the extratropics, in the internal atmospheric variability attained through an en- semble of integrations by an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) forced with the global observed SSTs. We focused on the interannual variability of AO/AAO, which is dominated by internal atmospheric variability. In comparison with previous observed results, the AO/AAO in internal atmospheric variability bear some similar characteristics, but exhibit a much clearer spatial structure: significant correlation be- tween the North Pacific and North Atlantic centers of action, much stronger and more significant associated precipitation anomalies, and the meridional displacement of upper-tropospheric westerly jet streams in the Northern/Southern Hemisphere. In addition, we examined the relationship between the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)/AO and East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM). It has been shown that in the internal atmospheric variability, the EAWM variation is significantly related to the NAO through upper-tropospheric atmospheric teleconnection patterns. Key words: internal atmospheric variability, North Atlantic Oscillation, Arctic Oscillation, Antarctic Os- cillation, extratropical climate anomalies, East Asian winter monsoon DOI: 10.1007/s00376-007-0152-4 1. Introduction Ho et al., 2005; Ju et al., 2005; Wang and Fan, 2005) and winter monsoon (Wu and Wang, 2002a; Jeong and The annular mode perspective, illustrated by the Ho, 2005; Gong and Drange, 2005). The variability in Arctic Oscillation (AO) and Antarctic Oscillation the AO would change in global warming simulations, (AAO), provides a different view of low-frequency at- and the observed AO trend in recent decades might be mospheric variability from the classic region-to-region attributed to the increase in atmospheric greenhouse teleconnections to the hemispheric scale zonally sym- gas concentrations (Fyfe et al., 1999; Shindell et al., metric patterns (Thompson and Wallace, 2000; Li and 1999; Yukimoto and Kodera, 2005). Wang, 2003). Discussion on the AO has been stim- The annular mode has been questioned by the re- ulated due to its crucial associations with the lin- gional perspective that views the annular mode as a ear trend of temperature in the observed atmosphere statistical artifact of local occurring dynamics of the (Thompson et al., 2000), and its impacts on regional North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Deser (2000) found climate (Thompson and Wallace, 2001). In particular, that the Arctic center of action of the AO is signifi- there was evidence that the AO/AAO are associated cantly correlated with both the Atlantic and Pacific with East Asian summer climate (Gong et al., 2003; centers, but no direct correlation was observed be- ∗E-mail: [email protected] NO. 1 LU ET AL. 153 tween the Atlantic and Pacific centers. Ambaum et and EAWM, suggesting that the AO influences the al. (2001) and Dommenget and Latif (2002) found EAWM through its impacts on the Siberian High. Wu that annular structures appear as mathematical con- and Wang (2002b), however, argued that the AO and struct in the outputs of idealized statistical models in Siberian High are relatively independent of each other which variability in the Pacific and Atlantic sectors in influencing the EAWM, although the relationship was constrained to be linearly independent. Wallace between the EAWM and AO is marginally significant. and Thompson (2002) counteracted this argument and Indeed, the relationship between the EAWM and AO suggested that the absence of significant correlation is subtle in observations, and is no longer found to be between the Atlantic and Pacific centers comes from significant after the linear trend is removed (Gong et a contamination by the second empirical orthogonal al., 2001). function (EOF) pattern, which is associated with the There has been no statistically significant rela- El Ni˜no-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). After remov- tionship identified between the EAWM and NAO, al- ing the second EOF pattern by linear regression from though the latter is highly correlated with the AO. sea level pressure (SLP) data, Wallace and Thomp- It is expected to some extent, however, since the AO son (2002) noted a significant correlation between the illustrates a hemispheric scale zonally symmetric tele- Atlantic and Pacific oscillations. connection pattern and thus might correlate with more The NAO has a rich blend of frequencies, those phenomena in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere. with both high (intraseasonal to interannual) and low Jhun and Lee (2004) suggested that the relationship frequency (decadal to multi-decadal or trend) variabil- between the EAWM and AO/NAO is dominant on ities (Hurrell, 1995). The former is believed to be dom- the interdecadal timescale but not on the interannual inated by atmospheric internal variability (Lee and timescale. On the other hand, Watanabe (2004) found Feldstein, 1996; Watterson, 2000), while the mecha- that when the NAO accompanies the Mediterranean nism responsible for the latter is not clear, although convergence anomaly, the anomalies associated with ocean-atmosphere interactions (Gr¨atzner et al., 1998; the NAO extend toward East Asia via quasi-stationary Rodwell et al., 1999) and global warming (Kuzmina, Rossby waves trapped on the Asian jet waveguide, and 2005) are possible candidates. The vacillations in are similar to the spatial structure of the AO. This is the zonal flow reminiscent of the annular modes are in contrast to the understanding that the NAO is rela- clearly evident in models with the absence of ocean- tively confined to the Atlantic and Europe without the atmosphere coupling (e.g., Lee and Feldstein, 1996). anomalous Mediterranean convergence. Furthermore, Thus, at least for the high-frequency variability of the there is evidence for the climate linkage between East AO/NAO, the internal atmospheric variability is dom- Asia and North America. Yang et al. (2002) found inant and needs to be specially examined. that a stronger East Asian upper-tropospheric west- The ocean-atmosphere interaction may make the erly jet (EAJ) corresponds to strengthened EAWM AO ambiguous. As an indirect support of this hypoth- and warmer (colder) condition in the western (east- esis, Wallace and Thompson (2002) obtained a more ern) Unites States. coherent structure of the AO after the second EOF The questions remain: what are the features of pattern, which is associated with the ENSO, is re- the AO/AAO in internal atmospheric variability? Do moved from the data. The ENSO, the strongest ocean- these features differ from those in observations, which atmosphere coupling phenomenon on the interannual involve the ocean-atmosphere interaction and anthro- timescale, is associated with the various temperature pogenic climate change? These questions are essen- and precipitation anomalies that are pronounced in tial for providing a better understanding of the physi- the tropics but frequently extend into the extratrop- cal mechanisms responsible for the climatic variability ics. The ENSO is likely to be associated with the in the AO/AAO and in attaining a better prediction SLP anomalies in the North Atlantic region that are of the anthropogenic impacts. In this study, we ad- projected in the NAO (Huang et al., 1998; Dong et dress these questions by investigating the internal at- al., 2000; Pozo et al., 2001). The effects of ocean- mospheric variability through an ensemble of integra- atmosphere interaction on the NAO on the interannual tions by a model forced with the global observed SSTs. timescale, whether statistically significant or not, veil In addition, we investigate the relationship between the nature of the internal atmospheric variability. the NAO/AO and EAWM in the internal atmospheric Although the effects of AO on regional climate have variability. been extensively investigated, the relationship between Some previous studies have investigated the the EAWM and the AO and the physical mechanism AO/AAO using Atmospheric General Circulation behind the relationship remains unclear. Gong et Models (AGCMs), but they emphasized the pre- al. (2001) first showed a connection between the AO dictability of the AO/AAO, and thus focused on the 154 ARCTIC OSCILLATION AND ANTARCTIC OSCILLATION VOL. 24 ensemble-mean variability. Although there were a few the details of the calculation method, refer to Rowell studies using AGCMs forced with climatological SSTs et al. (1995). (Watterson, 2000), these did not discuss the spatial The analysis of the internal atmospheric variability structure of AO/AAO and AO/AAO-associated cli- in this study parallels previous observational analyses mate anomalies for internal variability
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