WHOI PO

Title: New perspectives on ocean-atmosphere interaction: moving forwards in time, not backwards
Abstract:  In the extra-tropics, many observed ocean imprints on the atmosphere are typically explained through time-mean mechanisms, often with the assumption that there is a cancellation of shorter timescale noise (i.e., the weather). This talk discusses whether a different viewpoint is more appropriate: that the oceanic influence on the atmosphere should instead be considered as a direct accumulation of shorter timescale ocean-weather processes. 

Examples discussed here of well-known air-sea phenomena that can be more completely explained by ocean-weather interactions include 1) increased (decreased) rainfall found on average over warm (cold) ocean eddies and 2) anchored time-mean wind convergences over oceanic frontal zones. Additionally, the average structure of extra-tropical weather systems in different ocean basins is shown to mirror the respective western boundary currents.
 
The key to this new paradigm is the atmospheric front, which serves as the junction between weather and climate. The importance of atmospheric fronts is also considered in the context of new results suggesting they might have a critical role in linking sub-monthly variability in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation with the North Atlantic Oscillation several months later.

Despite the clear importance of ocean-atmospheric front interactions for both weather and climate, adequate observations of certain air-sea variables critical to the coupling remain almost non-existent.