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- Kjellsson, Joakim, 1986-
(author)
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Atmospheric & Oceanic Applications of Eulerian and Lagrangian Transport Modelling
- 2014
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis presents several ways to understand transports of air and water masses in the atmosphere and ocean, and the transports of energy that they imply. It presents work using various kinds of observations as well as computer simulations of the atmosphere and oceans. One of the main focuses is to identify similarities and differences between models and observations, as well as between different models.The first half of the thesis applies Lagrangian methods to study flows in the atmosphere and oceans. Part of the work focuses on understanding how particles follow the currents in the Baltic Sea and how they disperse. It is suggested that the commonly used regional ocean model for the Baltic Sea, RCO, underestimates the transport and the dispersion of the particles, which can have consequences for studies of e.g. biogeochemistry as well as for operational use. A similar methodology is used to study how particles are transported between the tropics and mid-latitudes by the large-scale atmospheric circulation. It is found that the mass transport associated with northbound and southbound particles can cancel in the zonally averaged circulation, and we propose that the degree of cancellation depends on the method of averaging.The latter half of the thesis focuses on Eulerian stream functions and specifically a thermodynamic stream function that combines the zonal and meridional circulations of the atmosphere into a single circulation. The results are used to study the inter-annual variability of the intensity and thermodynamic properties of the global atmospheric circulation. A significant correlation to ENSO variability is found both in reanalysis and the EC-Earth coupled climate model. It is also shown that a set of models from the CMIP5 project show a slowdown of the atmospheric circulation as a result of global warming and associated changes in near-surface moisture content and upper-level radiative cooling.
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| 2. |
- Kjellsson, Joakim, 1986-, et al.
(author)
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The Atmospheric General Circulation in Thermodynamical Coordinates
- 2014
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In: Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. - 0022-4928 .- 1520-0469. ; 71:3, s. 916-928
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The zonal and meridional components of the atmospheric general circulation are used to define a global thermodynamic stream function in dry static energy versus latent heat coordinates. Diabatic motions in the tropical circulations and fluxes driven by midlatitude eddies are found to form a single, global thermodynamic cycle. Calculations based on the ERA-Interim reanalysis dataset indicate that the cycle has a peak transport of 428 Sv (Sv = 109 kg s−1). The thermodynamic cycle encapsulates a globally interconnected heat and water cycle comprising ascent of moist air where latent heat is converted into dry static energy, radiative cooling where dry air loses dry static energy, and a moistening branch where air is warmed and moistened. It approximately follows a tropical moist adiabat and is bounded by the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship for near-surface air. The variability of the atmospheric general circulation is related to ENSO events using reanalysis data from recent years (1979-2009) and historical simulations from the EC-Earth coupled climate model (1850-2005). The thermodynamic cycle in both EC-Earth and ERA-Interim widens and weakens with positive ENSO phases and narrows and strengthens during negative ENSO phases with a high correlation coefficient. Weakening in amplitude suggests a reduction in moist convection in the tropics, while widening suggests an increase in mean tropical near-surface moist static energy.
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