Polar Lows

Polar lows are mesoscale cyclonic weather systems and are ubiquitous over the maritime high latitudes. Their strong winds and associated weather can be a hazard for shipping, while their relatively small scale makes them difficult to forecast.

For a more detailed overview please see my article for the Encyclopedia of the Atmospheric Sciences published by Academic Press in 2003. The article is aimed at science graduate level and attempts to provide a pedagogical overview of polar lows. I have some reprints so please contact me if you'd like one.

A COAPEC-funded PhD project was undertaken by Alan Condron in Sheffield on the oceanic impacts of mesoscale cyclones in the north east North Atlantic, co-supervised with Professor Grant Bigg. This project investigated how well the ECMWF ERA40 reanalysis captures mesoscale cyclones, using a satellite-based climatology as verification (Condron, Bigg and Renfrew 2006). The impact of such mesoscale cyclones on an ocean model is profound and important, as described in Condron, Bigg and Renfrew (2008).

In my 1997 paper on interactions between polar lows in the Norwegian Sea, I showed binary interactions causing a cyclonic co-rotation of two polar lows. This movie of three satellite images show this co-rotation beautifully.