The sensitivity of atmospheric blocking to upstream  latent heating – numerical experiments

Steinfeld, Daniel; Boettcher, Maxi; Forbes, Richard; Pfahl, Stephan

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-405-2020

Articles | Volume 1, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-405-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-405-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 1, issue 2

Research article

|

24 Aug 2020

Research article |

| 24 Aug 2020

The sensitivity of atmospheric blocking to upstream latent heating – numerical experiments

Daniel Steinfeld, Maxi Boettcher, Richard Forbes, and Stephan Pfahl

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-1-405-2020-supplement

Data sets

ConTrack – Contour Tracking D. Steinfeld https://github.com/steidani/ConTrack

Short summary

The effect of latent heating on atmospheric blocking is investigated using numerical sensitivity experiments. The modification of latent heating in the upstream cyclone has substantial effects on the upper-tropospheric circulation, demonstrating that some blocking systems do not develop at all without upstream latent heating. The results highlight the importance of moist-diabatic processes for the dynamics of prolonged anticyclonic circulation anomalies.