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The Arctic is estimated to have warmed up to four times faster than the rest of the globe since the 1980s. There is significant interest in understanding the mechanisms by which such warming may impact weather and climate at lower latitudes. One such mechanism is the "stratospheric pathway"; Arctic warming is proposed to induce a wave‐driven weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex, which may subsequently impact large‐scale tropospheric circulation. However, recent comprehensive model studies have found systematic differences in both the magnitude and sign of the stratospheric response to Arctic warming. Using a series of idealized model simulations, we show that this response is sensitive to characteristics of the warming and mean polar vortex strength. In all simulations, imposed polar warming amplifies upward wave propagation from the troposphere, consistent with comprehensive models. However, as polar warming strength and depth increases, the region through which waves can propagate is narrowed, inducing wave breaking and deceleration of the flow in the lower stratosphere. Thus, the mid‐stratosphere is less affected, with reduced sudden stratospheric warming frequency for stronger and deeper warming compared to weaker and shallower warming. We also find that the sign of the stratospheric response depends on the mean strength of the vortex, and that the stratospheric response in turn plays a role in the magnitude of the tropospheric jet response. Our results help explain the spread across multimodel ensembles of comprehensive climate models. Plain Language Summary: In the last four decades, the Arctic has warmed significantly faster than the rest of the world. Such warming has been suggested to generate waves in the atmosphere that move up into the stratosphere, where they break. If this were particularly powerful, it could disrupt and slow the typically strong and stable band of stratospheric winds encircling the winter pole, with potential consequences for surface weather and climate. However, state‐of‐the‐art models disagree on how this "stratospheric polar vortex" responds to Arctic warming, even in terms of whether it will become weaker or stronger. In this study, our simplified climate model simulations indicate that the stratospheric response depends on certain characteristics of the Arctic warming. As it increases in strength and vertical extent, upward‐moving waves are confined and forced to break lower down, resulting in fewer disruptions of the vortex above. We also find that the state of the vortex influences whether it weakens or strengthens, with implications for near‐surface winds. Our results help explain the range of stratospheric responses simulated by more complex models. Key Points: In a simple GCM, the sign and magnitude of the stratospheric polar vortex response to Arctic warming is highly sensitive to the basic stateThe stratospheric response also depends on the strength and vertical extent of Arctic warming in the troposphereStronger/deeper warming narrows the lower stratospheric waveguide, slowing winds at lower levels than with weaker/shallower warming [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arctic amplification has been proposed to promote temperature extremes by slowing the midlatitude jet and increasing the amplitude of its meanders. Observational and modeling studies have used a variety of metrics to quantify jet waviness. These studies show conflicting changes in jet waviness depending on the metric used and period examined. Here, we evaluate common metrics for dry idealized model simulations in which we apply polar warming of varying depth and meridional extent. In all simulations, polar warming increases the spatial extent of jet meanders, but reduces the magnitudes of ridges and troughs within the wave. As a result, geometric and anomaly‐amplitude measures of jet waviness can yield opposing responses. This contrast between metrics is particularly evident when warming extends into the midlatitudes. In all simulations, midlatitude temperature anomalies weaken as the poles warm, suggesting that a wavier jet need not imply stronger temperature extremes. Plain Language Summary: The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, and this has been suggested to affect weather over midlatitude regions in Eurasia and North America. It has been proposed that, as the pole warms, the equator‐to‐pole temperature gradient is reduced and the atmospheric jet stream slows down and undergoes larger, slower‐moving meanders, which bring long‐lasting extreme temperatures. However, theories for understanding waves in the jet stream actually suggest that these waves could weaken when the equator‐to‐pole temperature gradient decreases. This study uses simple model simulations to test how different metrics for describing jet waviness respond when the pole is warmed. We find that the overall scale of meanders does seem to increase, but the associated temperature anomalies decrease, suggesting a wavier jet stream need not imply stronger temperature extremes. Key Points: Spatial extent of midlatitude waves is increased by polar amplificationMagnitudes of ridges and troughs within waves are decreased by polar amplificationAccordingly, geometric, and anomaly‐amplitude measures of jet waviness can yield opposing responses [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the great diversity of atmospheric circulation patterns observed throughout the solar system, polar vortices stand out as a nearly ubiquitous planetary‐scale phenomenon. In recent years, there have been significant advances in the observation of planetary polar vortices, culminating in the fascinating discovery of Jupiter's polar vortex clusters during the Juno mission. Alongside these observational advances has been a major effort to understand polar vortex dynamics using theory, idealized and comprehensive numerical models, and laboratory experiments. Here, we review our current knowledge of planetary polar vortices, highlighting both the diversity of their structures, as well as fundamental dynamical similarities. We propose a new convention of vortex classification, which adequately captures all those observed in our solar system, and demonstrates the key role of polar vortices in the global circulation, transport, and climate of all planets. We discuss where knowledge gaps remain, and the observational, experimental, and theoretical advances needed to address them. In particular, as the diversity of both solar system and exoplanetary data increases exponentially, there is now a unique opportunity to unify our understanding of polar vortices under a single dynamical framework. Plain Language Summary: Polar vortices are often described as the rotational motion of air in the polar regions of planets, this includes large vortices where flow circumnavigates the pole and smaller vortices that are centered within polar regions. The most commonly discussed polar vortices are those in Earth's stratosphere, which have given rise to the ozone hole. More recently a number of other circulation patterns have been described as polar vortices, on Earth, and other planets. We review key features of these different polar vortices, and explain their similarities and differences using decades of theory, observations and modeling from the geophysical fluid dynamics community. We review how the different dynamical and chemical structures evolve as features of the polar vortex structures, and why they are integral to the makeup of planetary atmospheres. We conclude by summarizing the latest knowledge on potential polar vortices outside of our solar system, which to date are only theorized. Key Points: Earth is not unique in having polar vortices, every well‐observed planetary body with a substantial atmosphere appears to have oneThe range of vortices in our solar system is diverse, but much of their character can be explained in terms of the fluid dynamics for EarthClassifying vortices into those with predominantly circumpolar flow and those with large zonal asymmetries captures all that we know about [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple diagnostic cloud scheme (SimCloud) for general circulation models (GCMs), which has a modest level of complexity and is transparent in describing its dependence on tunable parameters, is proposed in this study. The large-scale clouds, which form the core of the scheme, are diagnosed from relative humidity. In addition, the marine low stratus clouds, typically found off the west coast of continents over subtropical oceans, are determined largely as a function of inversion strength. A "freeze-dry" adjustment based on a simple function of specific humidity is also available to reduce an excessive cloud bias in polar regions. Other cloud properties, such as the effective radius of cloud droplet and cloud liquid water content, are specified as simple functions of temperature. All of these features are user-configurable. The cloud scheme is implemented in Isca, a modeling framework designed to enable the construction of GCMs at varying levels of complexity, but could readily be adapted to other GCMs. Simulations using the scheme with realistic continents generally capture the observed structure of cloud fraction and cloud radiative effect (CRE), as well as its seasonal variation. Specifically, the explicit low-cloud scheme improves the simulation of shortwave CREs over the eastern subtropical oceans by increasing the cloud fraction and cloud water path. The freeze-dry adjustment alleviates the longwave CRE biases in polar regions, especially in winter. However, the longwave CRE in tropical regions and shortwave CRE over the extratropics are both still too strong compared to observations. Nevertheless, this simple cloud scheme provides a suitable basis for examining the impacts of clouds on climate in idealized modeling frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SimCloud, a simple diagnostic cloud scheme for general circulation models (GCMs) is proposed in this study. The large-scale clouds, which form the core of the scheme, are diagnosed from relative humidity. In addition, marine low stratus clouds, typically found off the west coast of continents over subtropical oceans, are determined largely as a function of inversion strength. A freeze- dry adjustment based on a simple function of relative humidity may also used to reduce an excessive clouds bias in polar regions. Other cloud properties, such as the effective radius of cloud droplet and cloud liquid water content, are specified as simple functions of temperature. All of these features are user- configurable. The cloud scheme is implemented in Isca, a modeling framework designed to enable the construction of GCMs at varying levels of complexity, but could readily be adapted to other GCMs. Simulations using the scheme with realistic continents generally capture the observed structure of cloud fraction and cloud radiative effect (CRE), as well as its seasonal variation. Specifically, the explicit low cloud scheme improves the simulation of shortwave CREs over the eastern subtropical oceans by increasing the cloud fraction and cloud water path over there. The freeze-dry adjustment alleviates the longwave CRE biases in polar regions especially in winter. However, the longwave CRE in tropical regions and shortwave CRE over extratropics are still too strong compared to observations. Nevertheless, this simple cloud scheme provides a suitable basis for examining the impacts of clouds on climate in idealized modeling frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The depth of the jet streams seen in Jupiter's outer weather layer has long been debated, with alternative suggestions of confinement to the weather layer and extensions deep into the planet being considered. Interpretation of measurements from NASA's Juno probe have suggested that weather‐layer jets do extend deep into the planet, down to depths of 𝒪(3,000 km). However, this relies on the assumption that the jet profile does not change its spatial structure with depth, which may not be the case. In this work, we consider a simple 1.5‐layer shallow‐water model of Jupiter‐like jet streams, with prescribed deep jets in the lower layer, and look at the parameters affecting the strength of the coupling between the layers. We find the value of the Rossby deformation scale, LD, to be particularly important, not just in setting the magnitude of variations in layer depth, but also in dictating the effectiveness of radiative damping. We also find the radiative damping timescales, the energy injection rate, and the spacing of deep jets to be important. We combine these findings into our best‐guess simulations of the real Jupiter and find that low latitudes are relatively uncoupled between the layers, with high latitudes being more tightly coupled. These effects can be tied to the smallness of Jupiter's LD and the effectiveness of radiative damping as a coupling mechanism. These simulations do, however, produce equatorial subrotation and eddy‐momentum fluxes unlike those on the real planet. It may be, therefore, that spatially varying forcing and very long radiative damping timescales are required for this model to be more Jupiter‐like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The climate and circulation of a terrestrial planet are governed by, among other things, the distance to its host star, its size, rotation rate, obliquity, atmospheric composition and gravity. Here we explore the effects of the last of these, the Newtonian gravitational acceleration, on its atmosphere and climate. We first demonstrate that, if the atmosphere obeys the hydrostatic primitive equations, which are a very good approximation for most terrestrial atmospheres, and if the radiative forcing is unaltered, changes in gravity have no effect at all on the circulation except for a vertical rescaling. That is to say, the effects of gravity may be completely scaled away and the circulation is unaltered. However, if the atmosphere contains a dilute condensible that is radiatively active, such as water or methane, then an increase in gravity will generally lead to a cooling of the planet because the total path length of the condensible will be reduced as gravity increases, leading to a reduction in the greenhouse effect. Furthermore, the specific humidity will decrease, leading to changes in the moist adiabatic lapse rate, in the Equator‐to‐Pole heat transport, and in the surface energy balance because of changes in the sensible and latent fluxes. These effects are all demonstrated both by theoretical arguments and by numerical simulations with moist and dry general circulation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isca is a framework for the idealized modelling of the global circulation of planetary atmospheres at varying levels of complexity and realism. The framework is an outgrowth of models from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, USA, designed for Earth's atmosphere, but it may readily be extended into other planetary regimes. Various forcing and radiation options are available, from dry, time invariant, Newtonian thermal relaxation to moist dynamics with radiative transfer. Options are available in the dry thermal relaxation scheme to account for the effects of obliquity and eccentricity (and so seasonality), different atmospheric optical depths and a surface mixed layer. An idealized grey radiation scheme, a two-band scheme, and a multiband scheme are also available, all with simple moist effects and astronomically based solar forcing. At the complex end of the spectrum the framework provides a direct connection to comprehensive atmospheric general circulation models. For Earth modelling, options include an aquaplanet and configurable continental outlines and topography. Continents may be defined by changing albedo, heat capacity, and evaporative parameters and/or by using a simple bucket hydrology model. Oceanic Q fluxes may be added to reproduce specified sea surface temperatures, with arbitrary continental distributions. Planetary atmospheres may be configured by changing planetary size and mass, solar forcing, atmospheric mass, radiation, and other parameters. Examples are given of various Earth configurations as well as a giant planet simulation, a slowly rotating terrestrial planet simulation, and tidally locked and other orbitally resonant exoplanet simulations. The underlying model is written in Fortran and may largely be configured with Python scripts. Python scripts are also used to run the model on different architectures, to archive the output, and for diagnostics, graphics, and postprocessing. All of these features are publicly available in a Git-based repository. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isca is a framework for the idealized modelling of the global circulation of planetary atmospheres at varying levels of complexity and realism. The framework is an outgrowth of models from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory designed for Earth's atmosphere, but it may readily be extended into other planetary regimes. Various forcing and radiation options are available, from dry, time invariant, Newtonian thermal relaxation to moist dynamics with radiative transfer. Options are available in the dry thermal relaxation scheme to account for the effects of obliquity and eccentricity (and so seasonality), different atmospheric optical depths and a surface mixed layer. An idealized gray radiation scheme, a two-band scheme and a multi-band scheme are also available, all with simple moist effects and astronomically-based solar forcing. At the complex end of the spectrum the framework provides a direct connection to comprehensive atmospheric general circulation models. For Earth modeling, options include an aqua-planet and configurable continental outlines and topography. Continents may be defined by changing albedo, heat capacity and evaporative parameters, and/or by using a simple bucket hydrology model. Oceanic Q-fluxes may be added to reproduce specified sea-surface temperatures, with arbitrary continental distributions. Planetary atmospheres may be configured by changing planetary size and mass, solar forcing, atmospheric mass, radiative, and other parameters. Examples are given of various Earth configurations as well as a Jovian simulation, a Venusian simulation, and tidally-locked and other orbitally-resonant exo-planet simulations. The underlying model is written in Fortran and may largely be configured with Python scripts. Python scripts are also used to run the model on different architectures, to archive the output, and for diagnostics, graphics, and post-processing. All of these features are publicly available on a git-based repository. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longstanding mystery about Jupiter has been the straightness and steadiness of its weather-layer jets, quite unlike terrestrial strong jets with their characteristic unsteadiness and long-wavelength meandering. The problem is addressed in two steps. The first is to take seriously the classic Dowling-Ingersoll (DI) 1½-layer scenario and its supporting observational evidence, pointing toward deep, massive, zonally symmetric zonal jets in the underlying dry-convective layer. The second is to improve the realism of the model stochastic forcing used to represent the effects of Jupiter's moist convection, as far as possible within the 1½-layer dynamics of the DI scenario. The real moist convection should be strongest in the belts where the interface to the deep flow is highest and coldest and should generate cyclones as well as anticyclones, with the anticyclones systematically stronger. The new model forcing reflects these insights. Also, it acts quasi frictionally on large scales to produce statistically steady turbulent weather-layer regimes without any need for explicit large-scale dissipation, and with weather-layer jets that are approximately straight thanks to the influence of the deep jets, allowing shear stability despite nonmonotonic potential vorticity gradients when the Rossby deformation length scale is not too large. Moderately strong forcing produces chaotic vortex dynamics and realistic belt-zone contrasts in the model's convective activity, through an eddy-induced sharpening and strengthening of the weather-layer jets relative to the deep jets, tilting the interface between them. Weak forcing, for which the only jet-sharpening mechanism is the passive, Kelvin shearing of vortices (as in the zonostrophic instability mechanism), produces unrealistic belt-zone contrasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the use of Isca for the hierarchical modeling of Solar System planets, with particular attention paid to Earth, Mars, and Jupiter. Isca is a modeling framework for the construction and use of models of planetary atmospheres at varying degrees of complexity, from featureless model planets with an atmosphere forced by a thermal relaxation back to a specified temperature, through aquaplanets with no continents (or no ocean) with a simple radiation scheme, to near-comprehensive models with a multi-band radiation scheme, a convection scheme, and configurable continents and topography. By a judicious choice of parameters and parameterization schemes, the model may be configured for fairly arbitrary planets, with stellar radiation input determined by astronomical parameters, taking into account the planet's obliquity and eccentricity. In this paper, we describe the construction and use of models at varying levels of complexity for Earth, Mars and Jupiter using the primitive equations and/or the shallow water equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]