Relationships between Antarctic cyclones and surface conditions as derived from high-resolution numerical weather prediction data

Abstract

An Antarctic cyclone climatology was created based on simulations of the Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS) and the University of Melbourne Cyclone (UM) detection and tracking algorithm for the period 2001-2009. Over 17,000 cyclone tracks were included in the climatology, and 20% of these cyclones were mesoscale in terms of their size. Mesoscale systems were common south of the Antarctic Circumpolar Trough (ACT) over the coastal oceans of the Indian Ocean sector and in the Ross Sea, while large synoptic systems occurred most frequently in the ACT. A novel technique was applied to study the relationships between cyclone characteristics and surface properties over the Southern Ocean ..