School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences

Persistent Maxima of 500-hPa Geopotential Height (PMZ)

This page updates the persistent maxima of 500-hPa geopotential height (PMZ) over (15oN-75oN, 170oE-310oE) every day for research purpose.

About PMZ

A PMZ event is identified and tracked using the eddy anomaly field of daily 500-hPa geopotential height. The event can include open ridges, blocking episodes, or both persistent longer than one day. The paper of Liu et al. (2017) describes the tracking algorithm in detail.

PMZ Distribution

The 500-hPa geopotential height is retrieved from the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis Project (2-day lag). Shown below are the PMZ centers (red square for the most recent day and black for its predecessors) and their current impact areas (shading in blue) during recent 11 days to 00Z .

PMZ

Fig. 1 The PMZ up to 2 days ago in the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis.

References

Liu, P., and Co-Authors, 2017: Climatology of tracked persistent maxima of 500-hPa geopotential height. Climate Dyn. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3950-0