タカヤ コウタロウ   TAKAYA KOTARO
  高谷 康太郎
   所属   京都産業大学  理学部 宇宙物理・気象学科
   職種   教授
言語種別 英語
発行・発表の年月 2012/01
形態種別 研究論文
査読 査読あり
標題 Seasonal Evolutions of Atmospheric Response to Decadal SST Anomalies in the North Pacific Subarctic Frontal Zone: Observations and a Coupled Model Simulation
執筆形態 その他
掲載誌名 JOURNAL OF CLIMATE
出版社・発行元 AMER METEOROLOGICAL SOC
巻・号・頁 25(1),pp.111-139
著者・共著者 Bunmei Taguchi,Hisashi Nakamura,Masami Nonaka,Nobumasa Komori,Akira Kuwano-Yoshida,Koutarou Takaya,Atsushi Goto
概要 Potential impacts of pronounced decadal-scale variations in the North Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) that tend to be confined to the subarctic frontal zone (SAFZ) upon seasonally varying atmospheric states are investigated, by using 48-yr observational data and a 120-yr simulation with an ocean atmosphere coupled general circulation model (CGCM). SST fields based on in situ observations and the ocean component of the CGCM have horizontal resolutions of 2.0 degrees and 0.5 degrees, respectively, which can reasonably resolve frontal SST gradient across the SAFZ. Both the observations and CGCM simulation provide a consistent picture between SST anomalies in the SAFZ yielded by its decadal-scale meridional displacement and their association with atmospheric anomalies. Correlated with SST anomalies persistent in the SAFZ from fall to winter, a coherent decadal-scale signal in the wintertime atmospheric circulation over the North Pacific starts emerging in November and develops into an equivalent barotropic anomaly pattern similar to the Pacific North American (PNA) pattern. The PNA-like signal with the weakened (enhanced) surface Aleutian low correlated with positive (negative) SST anomalies in the SAFZ becomes strongest and most robust in January, under the feedback forcing from synoptic-scale disturbances migrating along the Pacific storm track that shifts northward (southward) in accord with the oceanic SAFZ. This PNA-like signal, however, breaks down in February, which is suggestive of a particular sensitivity of that anomaly pattern to subtle differences in the background climatological-mean state. Despite its collapse in February, the PNA-like signal recurs the next January. This subseasonal evolution of the signal suggests that the PNA-like anomaly pattern may develop as a response to the persistent SST anomalies that are maintained mainly through ocean dynamics.
DOI 10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00046.1
ISSN 0894-8755/1520-0442