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 2009/12
形態種別 研究論文
査読 査読あり
標題 Air-Sea Heat Exchanges Characteristic of a Prominent Midlatitude Oceanic Front in the South Indian Ocean as Simulated in a High-Resolution Coupled GCM
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 22(24),pp.6515-6535
著者・共著者 Masami Nonaka,Hisashi Nakamura,Bunmei Taguchi,Nobumasa Komori,Akira Kuwano-Yoshida,Koutarou Takaya
概要 An integration of a high-resolution coupled general circulation model whose ocean component is eddy permitting and thus able to reproduce a sharp gradient in sea surface temperature (SST) is analyzed to investigate air-sea heat exchanges characteristic of the midlatitude oceanic frontal zone. The focus of this paper is placed on a prominent SST front in the south Indian Ocean, which is collocated with the core of the Southern Hemisphere storm track. Time-mean distribution of sensible heat flux is characterized by a distinct cross-frontal contrast. It is upward and downward on the warmer and cooler flanks, respectively, of the SST front, acting to maintain the sharp gradient of surface air temperature (SAT) that is important for preconditioning the environment for the recurrent development of storms and thereby anchoring the storm track. Induced by cross-frontal advection of cold (warm) air associated with migratory atmospheric disturbances, the surface flux is highly variable with intermittent enhancement of the upward (downward) flux predominantly on the warmer (cooler) flank of the front. Indeed, several intermittent events of cold (warm) air advection, whose total duration accounts for only 21% (19%) of the entire analysis period, contribute to as much as 60% (44%) of the total amount of sensible heat flux during the analysis period on the warmer (cooler) flank. This antisymmetric behavior yields the sharp cross-frontal gradient in the time-mean flux. Since the flux intensity is strongly influenced by local magnitude of the SST-SAT difference that tends to increase with the SST gradient, the concentration of the flux variance to the frontal zone and cross-frontal contrasts in the mean and skewness of the flux all become stronger during the spinup of the SST front. Synoptically, the enhanced sensible heat flux near the SST front can restore SAT toward the underlying SST effectively with a time scale of a day, to maintain a frontal SAT gradient against the relaxing effect of atmospheric disturbances. The restoration effect of the differential surface heating at the SST front, augmented by the surface latent heating concentrated on the warm side of the front, represents a key process through which the atmospheric baroclinicity and ultimately the storm track are linked to the underlying ocean.
DOI 10.1175/2009JCLI2960.1
ISSN 0894-8755/1520-0442