Global Climatologies of Eulerian and Lagrangian Flow Features based on ERA-Interim

Sprenger, Michael; Fragkoulidis, Georgios; Binder, Hanin; Croci-Maspoli, Mischa; Graf, Pascal; Grams, Christian M.; Knippertz, Peter; Madonna, Erica; Schemm, Sebastian; Škerlak, Bojan; Wernli, Heini

doi:10.1175/bams-d-15-00299.1

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Journal article

Global Climatologies of Eulerian and Lagrangian Flow Features based on ERA-Interim

Sprenger, Michael Institute for Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Fragkoulidis, Georgios Institute for Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland, and Institute for Atmospheric Physics, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany
Binder, Hanin Institute for Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Croci-Maspoli, Mischa Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss, Zurich, Switzerland
Graf, Pascal Institute for Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Grams, Christian M. Institute for Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Knippertz, Peter Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
Madonna, Erica Institute for Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland, and Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway
Schemm, Sebastian Institute for Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland, and Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway
Škerlak, Bojan Institute for Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Wernli, Heini Institute for Atmosphere and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

2017-9-6

Published in:

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. - American Meteorological Society. - 2017, vol. 98, no. 8, p. 1739-1748

Atmospheric Science

English Abstract
This paper introduces a newly compiled set of feature-based climatologies identified from ERA-Interim (1979–2014). Two categories of flow features are considered: (i) Eulerian climatologies of jet streams, tropopause folds, surface fronts, cyclones and anticyclones, blocks, and potential vorticity streamers and cutoffs and (ii) Lagrangian climatologies, based on a large ensemble of air parcel trajectories, of stratosphere–troposphere exchange, warm conveyor belts, and tropical moisture exports. Monthly means of these feature climatologies are openly available at the ETH Zürich web page (http://eraiclim.ethz.ch) and are annually updated. Datasets at higher resolution can be obtained from the authors on request. These feature climatologies allow studying the frequency, variability, and trend of atmospheric phenomena and their interrelationships across temporal scales. To illustrate the potential of this dataset, boreal winter climatologies of selected features are presented and, as a first application, the very unusual Northern Hemispheric winter of 2009/10 is identified as the season when most of the considered features show maximum deviations from climatology. The second application considers dry winters in the western United States and reveals fairly localized anomalies in the eastern North Pacific of enhanced blocking and surface anticyclones and reduced cyclones.

Language

English

Open access status

hybrid

Identifiers

DOI 10.1175/bams-d-15-00299.1
ISSN 0003-0007

Persistent URL

https://sonar.ch/global/documents/88816

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