Detection and Prediction of Atmospheric Persistent Ridges and Blocks

Dr. Ping Liu
Stony Brook University, USA

3号楼1218会议室
2019年8月12日（星期一）10:00

Abstract 

Atmospheric persistent ridges and blocks are major causes to extreme weather events such as heatwaves and droughts. These systems are difficult to predict from onset to decay, partly because their detection is less satisfactory. Several popular approaches are compared, particularly in detecting blocks at 500-hPa geopotential heights Z. The comparison indicates that 1) time anomalies Z' by removing long-term climatologies deviate away from actual ridges and blocking highs and they are less-ideal base fields for detection, and 2) the traditional criteria for blocks in reversals of meridional Z gradients against a single latitude along each longitude (central blocking latitude or CBL) detect notably different blocking climatologies. A new approach using zonal anomalies Z* is developed for detecting persistent ridges. This approach further separates blocks by requiring reversals of Z gradients at any latitude inside a detected high component. The blocks newly detected in both longitude and latitude occur substantially more often than those detected before, and have clear seasonality and quasi-barotropicity in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Their maximum intensity, moving speed and lifetime have similar log-normal distributions with some exceptions. This new approach is also applied to analyze the medium-range forecasts of persistent ridges in the NOAA GEFS ensemble prediction system. The presentation is based upon three collaborative papers in press or under review.

报告人简介:        
刘平，美国石溪大学Research Associate Professor。1999年获得中科院大气所博士学位。1999-2001年留所任助理研究员。2001-2003年在美国夏威夷大学做博士后，2003-2009在夏威夷大学任科学程序员，2009年去美国石溪大学工作。主要研究方向包括ENSO、ANO等在内的行星尺度变率问题，阻塞高压、以及飓风和MJO的实时预测。已发表SCI论文近40篇。