著者
Masatake E. Hori Jun Inoue Takashi Kikuchi Meiji Honda Yoshihiro Tachibana
出版者
(公社)日本気象学会
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.7, pp.25-28, 2011 (Released:2011-02-10)
参考文献数
12
被引用文献数
16 36

In the winter of 2009/2010, Japan and the East Asian region experienced a frequent occurrence of cold air outbreaks. Although the winter average temperature in the Japan main islands was slightly positive (+0.81°C for DJF average and +0.71°C for NDJFM average), repeated decline in temperature was notable throughout the season. One explanation for this abnormal winter season is the extremely negative condition of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) that persisted from December to mid-January. However, AO alone does not provide sufficient explanation for the cold air outbreak during November or its intraseasonal periodicity. A case study of the cold air outbreak that reached Japan on Dec. 18 reveals an anomalous ridge forming over the Barents-Kara Sea, which leads to the cold air accumulation over western Siberia. The pressure anomaly subsequently shifted westward to mature into a blocking high which created a wave-train pattern downstream, advecting the cold air eastward towards East Asia and Japan. The sequence of events was also apparent in multiple cases throughout the season. This study suggests that there is a strong and systematic linkage in the intraseasonal timescale between the atmospheric condition over the Barents-Kara Sea and the cold air accumulation over the Eurasian continent, leading to the anomalous cold air outbreak over East Asia and Japan. The mechanism may also provide explanation to extreme winter conditions such as those observed during the winter of 2010/2011.
著者
Yohei Takano Yoshihiro Tachibana Katsushi Iwamoto
出版者
Meteorological Society of Japan
雑誌
SOLA (ISSN:13496476)
巻号頁・発行日
vol.4, pp.113-116, 2008 (Released:2008-10-08)
参考文献数
16
被引用文献数
20 24

The characteristics of the anomalous winter climate around Japan in December 2005, including abnormally heavy snowfall, were analyzed from the viewpoint of interannual variation using reanalysis data for 50 years. The anomalous snowfall near the Sea of Japan in 2005 is attributed to an anomalous air-mass modification over the Sea of Japan, the large changes of thermodynamic characteristics due to the warmth of the Sea of Japan. Thermodynamic budget analyses showed that the air-mass modification in December 2005 over the Sea of Japan was the strongest in more than 40 years. Air-mass modification over the Sea of Japan was strongly related with a large-scale atmospheric north-south dipole pattern consisting of a northern high covering Siberia and a southern low covering a wide area of Japan in the 500 hPa height field in the positive phase (SJ pattern). In addition, the local SST variability during late autumn was significantly related to air-mass modification. However, the Arctic Oscillation was not significantly correlated with the air-mass modification over the Sea of Japan on an interannual timescale.