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Diagnostic comparison of wintertime East Asian subtropical jet and polar-front jet: Large-scale characteristics and transient eddy activities

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Abstract

Diagnostic comparison of the East Asian subtropical jet (EASJ) and polar-front jet (EAPJ) in winter season is carried out by using the ERA-40 dataset. The large-scale circulation characteristics and synopticscale transient eddy activities (STEAs) associated with the EASJ and EAPJ are examined. The results show that the EASJ and EAPJ in the upper-level monthly mean data have no clear geographical border, while the distribution of the numbers of jet cores from the daily data exhibits a distinct boundary at the latitudes of the northern Tibetan Plateau. The two areas with large numbers of jet cores correspond to the EASJ and EAPJ regions. The analysis of STEAs over the East Asian region shows a spatial match of STEAs with the EASJ and EAPJ in winter: the strong EASJ is located within the weak southern branch of the STEA while the relatively weak EAPJ appears within the active northern branch of the STEA, indicating that the EAPJ is the jet coexisting with the STEA. Further analysis shows two anomalous modes of the winter EAPJ: the anomalous anticyclonic/cyclonic circulation and the weakened/strengthened local westerly wind. The large-scale circulation anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere related to the first mode are concentrated in the Eurasian mid to high latitudes, and are also influenced by the anomalous circulation in the upstream area. When the local westerly wind over the EAPJ region is weakened/strengthened, the westerly jet in the eastern part of the EASJ and that in the western Pacific region show opposite variations. The corresponding anomalous atmospheric circulation demonstrates the Eurasian (EU) pattern. The EAPJ anomalies are also closely linked with the STEA anomalies over East Asia. The anomalies in the northern branch of the STEA propagate as a wave train along its axis into the East Asian coastal waters, and then migrate eastward to the oceanic region. However, the ones near the southern branch are trapped over the eastern part of East Asia and its coastal waters at 200 hPa.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Severe Weather and Climate, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Xuejuan Ren  (任雪娟), Xiuqun Yang  (杨修群) & Jiabei Fang  (房佳蓓)

  2. National Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (LASG), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Tianjun Zhou  (周天军)

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  1. Xuejuan Ren  (任雪娟)
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  2. Xiuqun Yang  (杨修群)
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  3. Tianjun Zhou  (周天军)
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  4. Jiabei Fang  (房佳蓓)
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Correspondence to Xuejuan Ren  (任雪娟).

Additional information

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 40775044 and 40730953, and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province under Grant No. BK2008027.

(Chinese version published in Vol. 68, No. 1, 1–11, 2010)

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Ren, X., Yang, X., Zhou, T. et al. Diagnostic comparison of wintertime East Asian subtropical jet and polar-front jet: Large-scale characteristics and transient eddy activities. Acta Meteorol Sin 25, 21–33 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-011-0002-2

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