As a climate scientist, I have worked and interacted with many weather scientists in the past 20 years or so. I am also currently in a task force team to advance subseasonal (2~4 weeks) forecasts of severe weather activity in the U.S. I have learned so much from weather scientists about how longer-term climate processes... Continue Reading →
Two important atmospheric jet streams that shape the extratropical zonal wind field in both hemispheres are the subtropical jet and the subpolar jet. The subtropical jet is located around 30° latitude line at the boundary between the Hadley cell and the Ferrel cell, and is predominantly a high-altitude feature. Since it is largely in thermal-wind... Continue Reading →
Atlantic Niño is the Atlantic counterpart of El Niño in the Pacific, often referred to as El Niño's little brother. It was previously thought to have only regional influence on rainfall variability in West Africa, but a growing number of studies have shown that Atlantic Niño also plays an important role in the development of... Continue Reading →
Atlantic Niño, characterized by warm sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the eastern equatorial Atlantic, is the Atlantic counterpart of the Pacific El Niño. Due to its smaller size in zonal extent, it is often referred to as El Niño’s little brother. It was previously thought to have a limited regional influence on rainfall variability... Continue Reading →
There are many siblings, cousins, and distant relatives of El Niño spanning the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans who share a feature in common: ocean surface temperature anomalies along eastern boundaries linked to changes in the upwelling of cooler water from below. So far, climate scientists have identified a total of 14 members of this... Continue Reading →
The Larsen ice shelves extend along the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula over the northwest part of the Weddell Sea. From north to south, these segments are called the Larsen A, B, C, and D, bordered by Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf south of the Weddell Sea. In 1995, the Larsen A ice shelf completely disintegrated,... Continue Reading →
The warming response of the upper atmosphere is much stronger in the tropics due to higher water vapor content and frequent deep tropical convection that maintains the atmosphere column well-mixed. As a result, the zonal jet strength, which is largely proportional to the meridional gradient of atmosphere temperature via "thermal wind relationship" is projected to... Continue Reading →
Antarctic sea-ice has expanded over the period of continuous satellite monitoring, which seemingly contradicts ongoing global warming resulting from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. A variety of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the observed Antarctic sea-ice expansion and corresponding model–observation discrepancy, but the issue remains unresolved. In a new study published in Nature Climate... Continue Reading →
Previous studies based on the climate models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) have suggested an increase in the frequency of extreme El Niño events in the 21st Century in response to increasing greenhouse gases. Several studies have attributed these shifts in El Niño frequency and amplitude to the projected changes in the... Continue Reading →
This is a guest blog by Robert West. Robert is a postdoctoral research associate in the Northern Gulf Institute (NGI) at the Mississippi State University and is also affiliated with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. Differences in sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTAs) between the tropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans are known to influence atmospheric... Continue Reading →
Ocean to Climate 