The Role of Underlying Boundary Forcing in Shaping the Recent Decadal Change of Persistent Anomalous Activity over the Ural Mountains

Observational analyses demonstrate that the Ural persistent positive height anomaly event(PAE) experienced a decadal increase around the year 2000, exhibiting a southward displacement afterward. These decadal variations are related to a large-scale circulation shift over the Eurasian Continent. The effects of underlying sea ice and sea surface temperature(SST) anomalies on the Ural PAE and the related atmospheric circulation were explored by Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project(AMIP) experiments from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 and by sensitivity experiments using the Atmospheric General Circulation Model(AGCM). The AMIP experiment results suggest that the underlying sea ice and SST anomalies play important roles. The individual contributions of sea ice loss in the Barents-Kara Seas and the SST anomalies linked to the phase transition of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation(PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation(AMO) are further investigated by AGCM sensitivity experiments isolating the respective forcings.The sea ice decline in Barents-Kara Seas triggers an atmospheric wave train over the Eurasian mid-to-high latitudes with positive anomalies over the Urals, favoring the occurrence of Ural PAEs. The shift in the PDO to its negative phase triggers a wave train propagating downstream from the North Pacific. One positive anomaly lobe of the wave train is located over the Ural Mountains and increases the PAE there. The negative-to-positive transition of the AMO phase since the late-1990s causes positive 500-h Pa height anomalies south of the Ural Mountains, which promote a southward shift of Ural PAE.

On the Formation and Maintenance of the Persistent Anomalies of Summertime Circulation over the Ural Mountains

The formation and maintenance of the persistent anomalies (PA hereafter) of summertime circulation over the Ural Mountains are studied, and a two-way interaction of transient eddies and time-mean flow that may be involved in the evolution of the positive anomaly is demonstrated. Firstly the feature of synoptic-scale transient activity during the PA period is investigated based on composite, and the results suggest a significant enhancement of transient activity over the sector from the central North Atlantic to the coastal western Europe for the positive cases whereas a weakening is for the negative. Numerical simulations are conducted using a barotropic primitive equation model linearized about two time-mean flows, the composite of positive cases and the climatological July mean respectively. The results show that the enhanced transient activity upstream will favor positive height anomalies over the Ural Mountains. A barotropic stormtrack model is developed, by which the role of time-mean flow in organization and modulation of transient eddies is studied. It is shown that the growth of ridge over the Ural Mountains tends to organize transient eddies into the region upstream from the central North Atlantic to the coastal western Europe. Combining the two aspects, a positive feedback mechanism through two-direction interaction of transient eddies and basic flow is proposed, which can be responsible for the formation and maintenance of the persistent positive anomalies over the Ural Mountains.

The influence of the Madden-Julian Oscillation activity anomalies on Yunnan's extreme drought of 2009-2010

Yunnan Province of China suffered a record-breaking drought that persisted from autumn 2009 into spring 2010. The present study examined the physical causes of this extreme drought event in terms of persistent anomalies of intraseasonal oscillation in the tropical atmosphere （the Madden-Julian Oscillation hereafter the MJO）. The results show that the occurrence of severe drought in Yunnan was caused directly by deficient rainfall lasting from the summer of 2009 to the spring of 2010. Further ex- ploration reveals a persistent positive variation of MJO index 1 from June to October. Accordingly, the convective activity over the Bay of Bengal （BOB） weakened continuously, and then an anomalous descending airflow was induced over the tropi- cal Indian Ocean, resulted in the anomalous weakening of vertical Asian monsoon circulation in South Asia. Consequently, the transport of water vapor from the tropical Indian Ocean to Yunnan decreased abnormally, leading to persistent below-normai rainfall over Yunnan from summer to autumn in 2009. As a result, a severe drought began to appear in autumn. In the winter of 2009-2010, MJO index 1 remained persistently positive, indicating the continuous weakening of convective activity over the BOB. The atmospheric circulation associated with the persistent positive anomalies in the MJO also demonstrated anomalous patterns. Specifically, there was an anomalous high-pressure ridge stretching from South Asia through the Tibetan Plateau and into the western part of southwestem China. This indicates that the atmospheric circulation over Yunnan was dominated by vertical descending airflow in the high-pressure ridge. Simultaneously, the India-Burma trough was weakened, which resulted in unfavorable conditions for the transport of water vapor from the BOB to Yunnan, causing the observed persistent deficient precipitation in winter and the subsequently intensified drought. Therefore, the persistent anomalies in MJO activity in the tropical atmosphere played an important role in the occurrence of the extreme drought event in Yunnan in 2009-2010.