Revealing recurrent regimes of mid-latitude atmospheric variability using novel machine learning method

Abstract

The low-frequency variability of the extratropical atmosphere involves hemispheric-scale recurring, often persistent, states known as teleconnection patterns or regimes, which can have a profound impact on predictability on intra-seasonal and longer timescales. However, reliable data-driven identification and dynamical representation of such states are still challenging problems in modeling the dynamics of the atmosphere. We present a new method, which allows us both to detect recurring regimes of atmospheric variability and to obtain dynamical variables serving as an embedding for these regimes. The method combines two approaches from nonlinear data analysis: partitioning a network of recurrent states with studying its properties by the recurrence quantification analysis and the kernel principal component analysis. We apply the method to study teleconnection patterns in a quasi-geostrophical model of atmospheric circulation over the extratropical hemisphere as well as to reanalysis data of geopotential height anomalies in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere in the winter seasons from 1981 to the present. It is shown that the detected regimes as well as the obtained set of dynamical variables explain large-scale weather patterns, which are associated, in particular, with severe winters over Eurasia and North America. The method presented opens prospects for improving empirical modeling and long-term forecasting of large-scale atmospheric circulation regimes.