Transient Atmospheric Response to Interactive SST Anomalies

Atmospheric Gcm Response to Extratropical Sst Anomalies: Synthesis and Evaluation

We examine the advances in our understanding of extratropical atmosphere-ocean interaction over the past decade and a half, focusing on the atmospheric response to sea surface temperature anomalies. The main goal of the paper is to assess what was learned from general circulation model (GCM) experiments over the recent two decades or so. Observational evidence regarding the nature of the intera...

Interactions between Global SST Anomalies and the Midlatitude Atmospheric Circulation

On account of the large thermal capacity of seawater and the slowly varying oceanic currents, the surface conditions of the world’s oceans typically fluctuate on timescales that are much longer than those of the atmosphere. Meteorologists have long regarded the surface properties of the oceans (in particular, sea surface temperature, or SST) as a prime candidate for inciting low-frequency atmos...

Mechanisms for Lagged Atmospheric Response to ENSO SST Forcing*

The mechanism and sensitivity of the lagged response of tropical tropospheric temperature to El Niño– Southern Oscillation (ENSO) SST forcing are examined using the Quasi-Equilibrium Tropical Circulation Model (QTCM) coupled to a slab mixed layer ocean model, along with a simple analytical model. It is found that the lag and amplitude of tropospheric temperature response depend on mixed layer d...

Retrospective Forecasts of the Hurricane Season Using a Global Atmospheric Model Assuming Persistence of SST Anomalies

Retrospective predictions of seasonal hurricane activity in the Atlantic and east Pacific are generated using an atmospheric model with 50-km horizontal resolution by simply persisting sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies from June through the hurricane season. Using an ensemble of 5 realizations for each year between 1982 and 2008, the correlations of the model mean predictions with observa...

Sensitivity of Seasonal Climate Forecasts to Persisted SST Anomalies