Shoshiro Minobe, Akira Kuwano-Yoshida, Nobumasa Komori, Shang-Ping Xie, Richard Justin Small
Abstract
The Gulf Stream transports large amounts of heat from the tropics to middle and high latitudes, and thereby affects weather phenomena such as cyclogenesis and low cloud formation. But its climatic influence, on monthly and longer timescales, remains poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear how the warm current affects the free atmosphere above the marine atmospheric boundary layer. Here we consider the Gulf Stream's influence on the troposphere, using a combination of operational weather analyses, satellite observations and an atmospheric general circulation model. Our results reveal that the Gulf Stream affects the entire troposphere. In the marine boundary layer, atmospheric pressure adjustments to sharp sea surface temperature gradients lead to surface wind convergence, which anchors a narrow band of precipitation along the Gulf Stream. In this rain band, upward motion and cloud formation extend into the upper troposphere, as corroborated by the frequent occurrence of very low cloud-top temperatures. These mechanisms provide a pathway by which the Gulf Stream can affect the atmosphere locally, and possibly also in remote regions by forcing planetary waves. The identification of this pathway may have implications for our understanding of the processes involved in climate change, because the Gulf Stream is the upper limb of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, which has varied in strength in the past and is predicted to weaken in response to human-induced global warming in the future.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 18. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 February 2023.
All research outputs
#2,011,823
of 25,312,451 outputs
Outputs from Nature
#42,843
of 97,251 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#5,135
of 92,288 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature
#163
of 565 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,312,451 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 97,251 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 102.4. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 55% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 92,288 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 565 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.
