Abstract
Teleconnections refer to links between regions that are distant to each other, but nevertheless exhibit some relation. The study of such teleconnections is a well-known task in climate research. Climate simulation shall model known teleconnections. Detecting teleconnections in climate simulations is a crucial aspect in judging the quality of the simulation output. It is common practice to run scripts to execute a sequence of analysis steps on the climate simulations to search for teleconnections. Such a scripting approach is not flexible and targeted towards one specific goal. It is desirable to have one tool that allows for a flexible analysis of all teleconnection patterns with a dataset. We present such a tool, where the extracted information is provided in an intuitive visual form to users, who then can interactively explore the data. We developed an analysis workflow that is modeled around four views showing different facets of the data with coordinated interaction. We present a teleconnection study with simulation ensembles and reanalysis data obtained by data assimilation to observe how well the teleconnectivity patterns match and to demonstrate the effectiveness of our tool.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barnston AG, Livezey RE (1987) Classification, seasonality and persistence of low-frequency atmospheric circulation patterns. Mon Weather Rev 115(6):1083–1126
Brewer CA (2003) Colorbrewer. http://colorbrewer2.org. Accessed 2016
Clement AC, Seager R, Cane MA (1999) Orbital controls on the el niño/southern oscillation and the tropical climate. Paleoceanography 14(4):441–456. https://doi.org/10.1029/1999PA900013
Climate Reanalyzer (2011) Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, USA. http://cci-reanalyzer.org/. Accessed 2016
Compo GP, Whitaker JS, Sardeshmukh PD (2006) Feasibility of a 100-year reanalysis using only surface pressure data. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 87(2):175–190
Compo GP, Whitaker JS, Sardeshmukh PD, Matsui N, Allan RJ, Yin X, Gleason BE, Vose RS, Rutledge G, Bessemoulin P, Brönnimann S, Brunet M, Crouthamel RI, Grant AN, Groisman PY, Jones PD, Kruk MC, Kruger AC, Marshall GJ, Maugeri M, Mok HY, Nordli Ø, Ross TF, Trigo RM, Wang XL, Woodruff SD, Worley SJ (2011) The twentieth century reanalysis project. Q J R Meteorol Soc 137(654):1–28
Hurrell JW (1995) Decadal trends in the north atlantic oscillation: regional temperatures and precipitation. Science 269(5224):676–679. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.269.5224.676
Jungclaus JH, Lorenz SJ, Timmreck C, Reick CH, Brovkin V, Six K, Segschneider J, Giorgetta MA, Crowley TJ, Pongratz J, Krivova NA, Vieira LE, Solanki SK, Klocke D, Botzet M, Esch M, Gayler V, Haak H, Raddatz TJ, Roeckner E, Schnur R, Widmann H, Claussen M, Stevens B, Marotzke J (2010) Climate and carbon-cycle variability over the last millennium. Clim Past 6(5):723–737
Kitoh A, Murakami S (2002) Tropical pacific climate at the mid-holocene and the last glacial maximum simulated by a coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model. Paleoceanography 17(3):19-1–19-13. https://doi.org/10.1029/2001PA000724 (1047)
KNMI Climate Explorer (2013) Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). https://climexp.knmi.nl/. Accessed 2016
Lohmann G (2017) Atmospheric bridge on orbital time scales. Theor Appl Climatol 128(3):709–718. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1725-2
Marsland SJ, Haak H, Jungclaus JH, Latif M, Röske F (2003) The Max-Planck-Institute global ocean/sea ice model with orthogonal curvilinear coordinates. Ocean Model 5(2):91–127
NCEP (2011) The 20th century reanalysis project database, version 2, ESRL NOAA. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/20thC_Rean. Accessed 2016
Nocke T, Buschmann S, Donges JF, Marwan N, Schulz HJ, Tominski C (2015) Review: visual analytics of climate networks. Nonlinear Process Geophys 22(5):545–570. https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-22-545-2015. https://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/22/545/2015/. Accessed 2016
PSD Web Products and Tools (2019) ESRL NOAA. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/products. Accessed 2016
Raddatz TJ, Reick CH, Knorr W, Kattge J, Roeckner E, Schnur R, Schnitzler KG, Wetzel P, Jungclaus J (2007) Will the tropical land biosphere dominate the climate-carbon cycle feedback during the twenty-first century. Clim Dyn 29(6):565–574
Roeckner E, Bäuml G, Bonaventura L, Brokopf R, Esch M, Giorgetta M, Hagemann S, Kirchner I, Kornblueh L, Manzini E, Rhodin A, Schlese U, Schulzweida U, Tompkins A (2003) The atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM5, Part I: model description. Max Planck Inst Meteorol Rep 349:1–127
Sammon JW Jr (1969) A nonlinear mapping for data structure analysis. IEEE Trans Comput C–18(5):401–409
Steed CA, Ricciuto DM, Shipman G, Smith B, Thornton PE, Wang D, Shi X, Williams DN (2013) Big data visual analytics for exploratory earth system simulation analysis. Comput Geosci 61:71–82
Thompson DWJ, Wallace JM (1998) The arctic oscillation signature in the wintertime geopotential height and temperature fields. Geophys Res Lett 25(9):1297–1300. https://doi.org/10.1029/98GL00950
Tudhope AW, Chilcott CP, McCulloch MT, Cook ER, Chappell J, Ellam RM, Lea DW, Lough JM, Shimmield GB (2001) Variability in the el nino-southern oscillation through a glacial-interglacial cycle. Science 291(5508):1511–1517. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1057969
van den Dool HM, Saha S, Johansson A (2000) Empirical orthogonal teleconnections. J Clim 13(8):1421–1435. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2000)013<1421:EOT>2.0.CO;2
von Storch H, Zwiers FW (2002) Statistical analysis in climate research. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Walker G, Bliss E (1932) World weather v. Mem R Meteorol Soc 4(36):53–84
Wallace JM, Gutzler DS (1981) Teleconnections in the geopotential height field during the northern hemisphere winter. Mon Weather Rev 109:784–812
Wetzel P, Maier-Reimer E, Botzet M, Jungclaus J, Keenlyside N, Latif M (2006) Effects of ocean biology on the penetrative radiation in a coupled climate model. J Clim 19(16):3973–3987
Whitaker JS, Compo GP, Wei X, Hamill TM (2004) Reanalysis without radiosondes using ensemble data assimilation. Mon Weather Rev 132(5):1190–1200
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by Helmholtz Association as a part of Earth System Science Research School, as well as the REKLIM and PACES programmes.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This article is part of a Topical Collection in Environmental Earth Sciences on “Visual Data Exploration”, guest edited by Karsten Rink, Roxana Bujack, Stefan Jänicke, and Dirk Zeckzer.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Antonov, A., Lohmann, G., Ionita, M. et al. An interactive visual analysis tool for investigating teleconnections in climate simulations. Environ Earth Sci 78, 294 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-019-8295-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-019-8295-z