Causes of climate extremes-generating ocean states

2013/14年度和2015年初整个北半球的冬季包括加利福尼亚州的长期干旱，北美东北部的极端寒冷和多雪的冬季，以及英国的严重洪水。观测分析和建模将这些不同的气候极端与海洋表面温度(SST)异常联系起来。所引发的热带印度洋和太平洋海温异常与厄尔尼诺或拉尼娜相关的海温异常截然不同。南印度洋和热带西太平洋海温异常偏暖，海洋大陆和赤道太平洋中部海温偏冷。最近一次与这种情况类似的情况是1990/91年冬天。极端海洋状态的第二个例子是中赤道太平洋持续多年的寒冷条件。在有海温记录的过去一个半世纪里，北美西部的极端干旱一直与热带太平洋的情况有关。1999年至2002年就是这样一个最近的状态。与厄尔尼诺和拉尼娜事件相比，这两个极端状态的海洋动力学和热力学还没有得到广泛的研究。该项目将对导致海洋采用这些SST模式的海洋动力和热力学过程进行详细分析。将被研究的海洋状态在全球范围内造成干旱、洪水、极端寒冷和降雪，特别是在北美和欧洲。这些事件的社会影响是巨大的。改进对气候变化的预测以及对气候变化发生频率和强度的了解，是适应和备灾的关键。预测需要了解，拟议的工作将促进对造成海洋温度异常的海洋原因的了解，从而能够在海洋强迫天气和气候极端情况的预测和特征方面取得进展。研究结果将提高我们对此类危险和事件进行建模和预测的能力。此外，这项工作产生的成果将通过首席调查员密切参与NOAA干旱工作队和国家综合干旱信息系统工作队，随时传达给能够推进预测、社会规划和适应工作的社区。创建的数据将通过哥伦比亚大学国际研究所的数据库提供，并作为研究资源提供给整个社区。该项目集中于三个海洋再分析中包含的上层海洋动量和热量收支的分析：欧洲中期天气预报中心的海洋再分析(1958年至今)，海洋环流和气候估计联合会(版本4,1993年至今)和地球物理流体动力学实验室的集合气候数据同化系统(1960年至今)。对于极值产生态，将使用标准数值程序来评估平均流和瞬变涡旋对表层通量、垂直混合和海洋热力动力辐合的贡献。动力和混合贡献将与上层海洋热含量的变化以及洋流和垂直运动的变化有关，而后者又将与风应力强迫有关。在一系列假设的指导下，在数据精度和样本量限制允许的范围内，将确定产生极端海洋状态的原因。将审查海洋再分析和表面通量的长期趋势，以及气候模型模拟的集合，以寻找人类驱动的气候变化正在改变极端海洋状态的可能性及其物理原因的任何证据。该项目将对海洋状态的海洋和海洋-大气成因进行全面评估，这些海洋状态与产生SST异常的两个重要极端事件有关。这项主要基于观测的工作将确定近期气候和天气极端事件的海洋原因背后的物理原因。

The winters of 2013/14 and early 2015 across the Northern hemisphere included chronic drought in California, extreme cold and snowy winters in northeast North America and severe floods in the U.K. Observational analyses and modeling have linked these disparate climate extremes to sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies. The SST anomalies in the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans that have been invoked are distinct from those associated with El Nino or La Nina. The SST anomalies were warm in the Southern Indian Ocean and Western Tropical Pacific and neutral to cool around the maritime continent and central Equatorial Pacific Ocean. A recent analog to that state was the winter of 1990/91. A second example of an extremes-generating ocean state is that of persistent, multiyear cold conditions in the Central Equatorial Pacific Ocean. For the last century and a half for which SST records exists, extreme drought in western North America has been associated with such Tropical Pacific Ocean conditions. 1999 to 2002 was one such recent state. In contrast to El Nino and La Nina events, the ocean dynamics and thermodynamics of these two extremes-generating states have not been extensively studied. This project will conduct a detailed analysis of the ocean dynamic and thermodynamic processes that cause the oceans to adopt these SST patterns. The ocean states to be studied generate droughts, floods, extreme cold and snow across the globe, particularly in North America and Europe. The societal impacts of these events have been large. Improving their prediction and the understanding of their frequency of occurrence and intensity are key to enabling adaptation and disaster preparedness. Prediction requires understanding and the proposed work will advance understanding of the oceanic causes of the SST anomalies responsible for them, thus enabling advances in prediction and characterization of ocean-forced weather and climate extremes. The results of the study will improve our capability to model and forecast such hazards and events. Further, results generated in this work will readily be communicated to the communities that can advance efforts for prediction, societal planning and adaptation via lead investigator's close involvement in NOAA's Drought task force and the National Integrated Drought Information System's Task Force. The data created will be served via the International Research Institute of Columbia University's Data Library and be available as a research resource to the entire community.The project is centered on the analysis of the momentum and heat budgets of the upper oceans contained within three ocean reanalyses: the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts' Ocean Reanalysis (1958 to present), the consortium for Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (Version 4, 1993 to present) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory's Ensemble Climate Data Assimilation system (1960 to present). The contributions of surface fluxes, vertical mixing and dynamical ocean heat convergence by the mean flow and transient eddies will be evaluated for the extremes generating states using standard numerical procedures. Dynamical and mixing contributions will be related to changes in upper ocean heat content and to changes in currents and vertical motion which in turn will be related to wind stress forcing. Guided by a series of hypotheses, the causes of the extremes-generating ocean states will be determined to the extent allowed by data accuracy and sample size limitation. Long term trends in the ocean reanalyses and surface fluxes, as well as ensembles of climate model simulations, will be examined for any evidence that human-driven climate change is altering the probability of extremes-generating ocean states and the physical reasons why. The project will provide a comprehensive assessment of the oceanographic and ocean-atmosphere causes of the ocean states associated with two important extremes-generating SST anomalies. This work, largely observationally-based, will determine the physics underlying oceanic causes of recent climate and weather extremes.