Local Atmospheric Response to an Open-Ocean Polynya in a High-Resolution Climate Model

Autor: Nicole Jeffery, Matthew W. Hecht, Milena Veneziani, Hailong Wang, Wilbert Weijer, Alexandra Jonko, Travis Hodos, Achim Stössel
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Climate. 30:1629-1641
ISSN: 1520-0442
0894-8755
Popis: In this paper the atmospheric response to an open-ocean polynya in the Southern Ocean is studied by analyzing the results from an atmospheric and oceanic synoptic-scale resolving Community Earth System Model (CESM) simulation. While coarser-resolution versions of CESM generally do not produce open-ocean polynyas in the Southern Ocean, they do emerge and disappear on interannual time scales in the synoptic-scale simulation. This provides an ideal opportunity to study the polynya’s impact on the overlying and surrounding atmosphere. This has been pursued here by investigating the seasonal cycle of differences of surface and air-column variables between polynya and nonpolynya years. The results indicate significant local impacts on turbulent heat fluxes, precipitation, cloud characteristics, and radiative fluxes. In particular, it is found that clouds over polynyas are optically thicker and higher than clouds over sea ice during nonpolynya years. Although the lower albedo of polynyas significantly increases the net shortwave absorption, the enhanced cloud brightness tempers this increase by almost 50%. Also, in this model, enhanced longwave radiation emitted from the warmer surface of polynyas is balanced by stronger downwelling fluxes from the thicker cloud deck. Impacts are found to be sensitive to the synoptic wind direction. The strongest regional impacts are found when northeasterly winds cross the polynya and interact with katabatic winds. Surface air pressure anomalies over the polynya are only found to be significant when cold, dry air masses strike over the polynya (i.e., in the case of southerly winds).
Databáze: OpenAIRE