ROADMAP – The Role of ocean dynamics and Ocean-Atmosphere interactions in Driving cliMAte variations and future Projections of impact-relevant extreme events
Research Questions
- How will future changes in northern hemisphere ocean circulation—western boundary currents and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation—influence SST fronts and large-scale SST variability patterns?
- How does mid-latitude ocean–atmosphere interaction influence the northern hemisphere tropospheric eddy-driven jet, the stratospheric polar night jet and atmospheric blocking on seasonal and longer timescales, and how is this interaction affected by global warming?
- How do tropical-extratropical atmosphere-ocean interactions and inter-basin teleconnections impact the northern hemisphere tropospheric eddy-driven jet, stratospheric polar night jet and atmospheric blocking on seasonal and longer-timescales? Will the interactions and teleconnections change in the future?
- How will changes in the major oceanic and atmospheric patterns impact atmospheric and marine extremes in the tropics and extra-tropics, including extra-tropical cyclones?
Our contribution
R. Donner and G. Di Capua will provide advanced analysis tools in the framework of WP5 “Empirical inference of dynamical links across space and timescales using advanced tools of nonlinear sciences” and collaborate with the project partners on their application to studying the above mentioned research questions. As a starting point, the Peter and Clark – Momentary Conditional Independence (PCMCI) algorithm will be applied to the study of tropical and extratropical interactions between tropical convection, ocean surface conditions and mid-latitude circulation variability in both observation and model simulations. A planned extension to include information on variability at distinct timescales will allow disentangling spurious from causal links across different timescales. The improved physical and model dynamics understanding gained from those analyses is crucial to improve both seasonal forecasts and future projections under climate change scenarios.
Contributors
- Reik Donner
- Dim Coumou
- Giorgia Di Capua
