Stephenson, D. B., and I. M. Held, 1993: GCM response of northern
winter stationary waves and storm tracks to increasing amounts of carbon
dioxide. Journal of Climate, 6(10), 1859-1870.
Abstract: The response of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
(GFDL) coupled ocean-atmosphere R15, 9-level GCM to gradually increasing
CO2 amounts is analyzed with emphasis on
the changes in the stationary waves and storm tracks in the Northern Hemisphere
wintertime troposphere. A large part of the change is described by an equivalent-barotropic
stationary wave with a high over eastern Canada and a low over southern
Alaska. Consistent with this, the Atlantic jet weakens near the North American
coast.
Perpetual winter runs of an R15, nine-level atmospheric GCM with sea surface
temperature, sea ice thickness, and soil moisture values prescribed from
the coupled GCM results are able to reproduce the coupled model's response
qualitatively. Consistent with the weakened baroclinicity associated with
the stationary wave change, the Atlantic storm track weakens with increasing
CO2 concentrations while the Pacific storm
track does not change in strength substantially.
An R15, nine-level atmospheric model linearized about the zonal time-mean
state is used to analyze the contributions to the stationary wave response.
With mountains, diabatic heating, and transient forcings the linear model
gives a stationary wave change in qualitative agreement with the change
seen in the coupled and perpetual models. Transients and diabatic heating
appear to be the major forcing terms, while changes in zonal-mean basic
state and topographic forcing play only a small role. A substantial part
of the diabatic response is due to changes in tropical latent heating.