Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-7pwfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T03:51:15.114Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Atmospheric Circulation Patterns During Glacial Inception: A Possible Candidate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Thomas J. Crowley
Thomas J. Crowley*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri 63121
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Models of atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic sector during glacial inception can be expanded to a hemispheric scale with the aid of diagnostic studies of the present climate. The present “Greenland Above” (GA) atmospheric circulation type may be a candidate for the atmospheric circulation type required during glacial inception. The pattern is an amplification, with only minor phase shifts, of the present average winter circulation pattern in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere. Southerly flow in the northwest Atlantic is associated with warm ocean temperatures, low sea ice in the Davis Strait, and increased precipitation over northeast Canada. Evidence from modeling of the present climate indicates that the GA pattern could be maintained by increased snow cover over eastern North America. Enhanced snow cover, due to decreased Northern Hemisphere summer insolation, could cause a similar response on an ice-age time scale.

Information

Type
Short Papers
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 1984, pp. 105 - 110
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Andrews, J.T. (1982). On the reconstruction of Pleistocene ice sheets: A review Quaternary Science Reviews 1, 1–30 Google Scholar
Andrews, J.T., Barry, R.G. (1978). Glacial inception and disintegration during the last glaciation Annual Reviews of the Earth and Planetary Sciences 6, 205–228 Google Scholar
Andrews, J.T., Funder, S., Hjort, C., Imbrie, J. (1974). Comparison of the glacial chronology of eastern Baffin Bay Island, East Greenland, and the Camp Century accumulation record Geology 2, 355–358 Google Scholar
Andrews, J.T., Mahaffy, M.A.W. (1976). Growth rate of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and sea level lowering (with special emphasis on the 115,000 BP sea level low) Quaternary Research 6, 167–183 Google Scholar
Andrews, J.T., Shilts, W.W., Miller, G.H. (1983). Multiple deglaciations of the Hudson Bay Lowlands, Canada, since deposition of the Missinaibi (last-interglacial?) Formation Quaternary Research 19, 18–37 Google Scholar
Barry, R.G. (1966). Meteorological aspects of the glacial history of Labrador-Ungava, with special reference to atmospheric vapour transport Geographical Magazine 8, 319–340 Google Scholar
Barry, R.G. (1981). The nature and origin of climatic fluctuations in northeastern North America Géographie Physique et Quaternaire 35, 41–47 Google Scholar
Barry, R.G., Andrews, J.T., Mahaffy, M.A. (1975). Continental ice sheets: Conditions for growth Science 190, 979–981 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, A.L. (1978). Long-term variations of caloric solar radiation resulting from the earth's orbital elements Quaternary Research 9, 139–167 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brinkmann, W.A.R., Barry, R.G. (1972). Palaeoclimatological aspects of the synoptic climatology of Keewatin, Northwest Territories, Canada Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 11, 77–91 Google Scholar
Budd, W.F. (1981). The importance of ice sheets in long-term changes of climate and sea level Sea Level, Ice, and Climate Change. International Association of Hydrological Sciences Publication. 131, 441–471 Google Scholar
Charney, J.G., Straus, D.M. (1980). Form-drag instability, multiple equilibria and propagating planetary waves in baroclinic, orographically forced, planetary wave systems Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 37, 1157–1176 Google Scholar
Dansgaard, W., Clausen, H.B., Gundestrup, N., Hammer, C.U., Johnsen, S.F., Kristinsdottir, P.M., Reeh, N. (1982). A new Greenland deep ice core Science 218, 1273–1277 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dansgaard, W., Johnsen, S.J., Reeh, N., Gundestrup, N., Clausen, H.B., Hammer, C.U. (1975). Climatic changes, Norsemen and modern man Nature (London) 255, 24–28 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diaz, H.F., Andrews, J.T. (1982). Analysis of the spatial pattern of July temperature departures (1943–1972) over Canada and estimates of the 700 mb midsummer circulation during middle and late Holocene Journal of Climatology 2, 251–265 Google Scholar
Dickson, R.R., Namias, J. (1976). North American influences on the circulation and climate of the North Atlantic sector Monthly Weather Review 104, 1255–1265 2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, R.E., Fairbanks, R.G., Benninger, L.K., Maurrasse, F. (1983). Pleistocene sea levels from raised coral reefs of Haiti Science 219, 1423–1425 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Douglas, A.V., Cayan, D.R., Namias, J. (1982). Large-scale changes in North Pacific and North American weather patterns in recent decades Monthly Weather Review 110, 1851–1862 Google Scholar
Dreimanis, A., Raukas, A. (1975). Did middle Wisconsin, middle Weichselian, and their equivalents represent an interglacial or an interstadial complex in the Northern Hemisphere? Suggate, R.P., Cresswell, M.M., Quaternary Studies Royal Society of New Zealand Wellington 109–120 Google Scholar
Flohn, H. (1974). Background of a geophysical model of the initiation of the next glaciation Quaternary Research 4, 385–404 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritts, H.C., Lofgren, G.R., Gordon, G.A. (1979). Variations in climate since 1602 as reconstructed from tree rings Quaternary Research 12, 18–46 Google Scholar
Gribbin, J., Lamb, H.H. (1978). Climatic change in historical times Gribbin, J., Climatic Change Cambridge Univ. Press Cambridge/New York 68–82 Google Scholar
Hartmann, D.L., Short, D.A. (1979). On the role of zonal asymmetries in climate change Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 36, 519–528 Google Scholar
Hastenrath, S. (1976). Variations in low-latitude circulation and extreme climatic events in the tropical Americas Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 33, 202–215 Google Scholar
Hastenrath, S. (1978). On modes of tropical circulation and climate anomalies Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 35, 2222–2231 Google Scholar
Horel, J.D., Wallace, J.M. (1981). Planetaryscale atmospheric phenomena associated with the southern oscillation Monthly Weather Review 109, 813–829 Google Scholar
Lamb, H.H. (1977). Climate, Present, Past, and Future vol. 2, Methuen London “Climatic History and the Future”Google Scholar
Lamb, H.H., Woodroffe, A. (1971). Atmospheric circulation during the last ice age Quaternary Research 1, 29–58 Google Scholar
Lau, N.-C. (1981). A diagnostic study of recurrent meteorological anomalies appearing in a 15-year simulation with a GFDL general circulation model Monthly Weather Review 109, 2287–2311 Google Scholar
McDonald, B.C., Shilts, W.W. (1971). Quaternary events and stratigraphy, southeastern Quebec Geological Society of America Bulletin 82, 683–698 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meehl, G.A., van Loon, H. (1979). The seesaw in winter temperatures between Greenland and northern Europe. Part III: Teleconnections with lower latitudes Monthly Weather Review 107, 1095–1106 Google Scholar
Namias, J. (1972). Influence of Northern Hemisphere general circulation on drought in northeast Brazil Tellus 14, 336–343 Google Scholar
Namias, J. (1978). Multiple causes for the North American abnormal winter 1976–1977 Monthly Weather Review 106, 279–295 Google Scholar
Nicholson, S.E. (1980). Saharan climates in historic times Williams, M.A.J., Faure, H., The Sahara and the Nile A. A. Balkema Rotterdam 173–200 Google Scholar
North, G.R., Cahalan, R.F., Coakley, J.A. (1981). Energy balance climate models Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics 19, 91–121 Google Scholar
Oerlemans, J. (1980). On zonal asymmetry and climate sensitivity Tellus 32, 489–499 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pokras, E.M., Mix, A.C. (1983). Hemispheric asymmetry of late Pleistocene climate in tropical west Africa: Aeolian diatom evidence EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 64, 245 Google Scholar
Roads, J.O. (1981). Linear and nonlinear aspects of snow albedo feedbacks in atmospheric models Journal of Geophysical Research 86, 7411–7424 Google Scholar
Roads, J.O. (1982). Stable and unstable near-resonant states in multilevel, severely truncated, quasi-geostrophic models Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 39, 203–224 Google Scholar
Rogers, J.C., van Loon, H. (1979). The seesaw in winter temperatures between Greenland and northern Europe. Part II. Some oceanic and atmospheric effects in middle and high latitudes Monthly Weather Review 107, 509–519 Google Scholar
Ruddiman, W.F., McIntyre, A. (1979). Warmth of the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean during Northern Hemisphere ice-sheet growth Science 204, 173–175 Google Scholar
Ruddinman, W.E., McIntyre, A., Niebler-Hunt, V., Durazzi, J.T. (1980). Oceanic evidence for the mechanism of rapid Northern Hemisphere glaciation Quaternary Research 13, 33–64 Google Scholar
Sanchez, W.A., Kutzbach, J.E. (1974). Climate of the American tropics and subtropics in the 1960s and possible comparisons with climatic variations of the last millenium Quaternary Research 4, 128–135 Google Scholar
Shackleton, N.J. (1977). The oxygen isotope stratigraphic record of the late Pleistocene Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B 280, 169–182 Google Scholar
Street, F.A., Grove, A.T. (1979). Global maps of lake-level fluctuations since 30,000 yr B.P. Quaternary Research 12, 83–118 Google Scholar
Tsuchiya, I. (1964). An analysis of the relationship between general circulation and climatic fluctuation (Part 2) Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan 42, 299–307 Google Scholar
van Loon, H., Madden, R.A. (1981). The Southern Oscillation. Part I. Global associations with pressure and temperature in northern winter Monthly Weather Review 109, 1150–1162 Google Scholar
van Loon, H., Rogers, J.C. (1978). The seesaw in winter temperatures between Greenland and northern Europe. Part I. General description Monthly Weather Review 106, 296–310 Google Scholar
Wallace, J.M., Gutzier, D.S. (1981). Teleconnections in geopotential field height during the Northern Hemisphere winter Monthly Weather Review 109, 784–812 2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weertman, J. (1976). Milankovitch solar radiation variations and ice-age ice-sheet sizes Nature (London) 261, 17–20 Google Scholar
Williams, J. (1975). The influence of snow cover on the atmospheric circulation and its role in climatic change: An analysis based on results from the NCAR global circulation model Journal of Applied Meteorology 14, 137–152 2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, L.D. (1978). Ice-sheet initiation and climatic influences of expanded snow cover in arctic Canada Quaternary Research 10, 141–149 CrossRefGoogle Scholar