Midlatitude dynamics emerge from the interaction of different scales, ranging from planetary-scale atmospheric jets and synoptic storms to mesoscale circulations associated with fronts and convection. While we have well-established theories for the development of fronts, extratropical cyclones, climatological jet streams, and convection, our understanding on the feedback and dynamical linkages between these spatio-temporal scales is still incomplete. Another prominent challenge is related to diabatic processes that are regularly not well represented in weather and climate models and for which we often lack a theoretical foundation. These processes, including surface fluxes, latent heating, and radiative processes, provide key dynamical linkages across scales.
Recent efforts attributing climatological signals to synoptic-scale features have revealed nuanced dynamical insights in the functioning of the general circulation as well as the role of sub-synoptic scale structures, such as fronts, warm conveyor belts, and atmospheric rivers, on the evolution of synoptic storms and large-scale waves. Relatedly, there has been significant progress on linking limits in predictability to up- and down-scale error propagation, ranging from convective to planetary scales. However, our fundamental understanding of the dynamic and diabatic interactions between these scales remains rather limited.
We therefore invite contributions that aim to address our understanding of the role of dynamic and diabatic interactions across scales including, but not limited to, the following topics:
• Dynamic and diabatic processes connecting scales from convection, clouds, and fronts to cyclones, storm tracks, and large-scale waves
• Coupling between the ocean and land surface and the atmosphere across scales
• Predictability and forecasting across scales, including representation in AI-based weather and climate models
• Innovative methods (for example linking Eulerian, feature-based, and Lagrangian methods) to diagnose cross-scale interactions