Seasonality in future tropical lower stratospheric temperature trends

The seasonality of the 21st century trends in tropical lower stratospheric temperature (LST) is examined in simulations by a group of comprehensive chemistry-climate models. In contrast to the past LST trends, there is robust seasonal dependence among ensembles of the same model. Furthermore, most models show strongest cooling around July–September and minimal cooling in February–March, which results in a weakening of the seasonality in tropical LST. Sensitivity simulations with isolated forcing reveal that greenhouse gas increases dominate the future tropical LST trend. This seasonally varying LST trend is linked to changes in the Brewer-Dobson circulation (BDC). The BDC can influence the LST through direct dynamical heating/cooling and indirect radiative effects primarily from ozone changes due to vertical transport. The latter is found to be the main cause for the seasonality of the 21st century LST trend, while it is difficult to separate them in the past

Stratospheric Polar Vortices

The intense cyclonic vortices that form over the winter pole are one of the most prominent features of the stratospheric circulation. The structure and dynamics of these “polar vortices” play a dominant role in the winter and spring stratospheric circulation and are key to determining distribution of trace gases, in particular ozone, and the couplings between the stratosphere and troposphere. In this chapter, we review the observed structure, dynamical theories, and modeling of these polar vortices.We consider both the zonal mean and three-dimensional potential vorticity perspective and examine the occurrence of extreme events and long-term trends

Upward Wave Activity Flux as a Precursor to Extreme Stratospheric Events and Subsequent Anomalous Surface Weather Regimes

It has recently been shown that extreme stratospheric events (ESEs) are followed by surface weather anomalies (for up to 60 days), suggesting that stratospheric variability might be used to extend weather prediction beyond current time scales. In this paper, attention is drawn away from the stratosphere to demonstrate that the originating point of ESEs is located in the troposphere. First, it is shown that anomalously strong eddy heat fluxes at 100 hPa nearly always precede weak vortex events, and conversely, anomalously weak eddy heat fluxes precede strong vortex events, consistent with wave–mean flow interaction theory. This finding clarifies the dynamical nature of ESEs and suggests that a major source of stratospheric variability (and thus predictability) is located in the troposphere below and not in the stratosphere itself. Second, it is shown that the daily time series of eddy heat flux found at 100 hPa and integrated over the prior 40 days, exhibit a remarkably high anticorrelation (−0.8) with the Arctic Oscillation (AO) index at 10 hPa. Following Baldwin and Dunkerton, it is then demonstrated that events with anomalously strong (weak) integrated eddy heat fluxes at 100 hPa are followed by anomalously large (small) surface values of the AO index up to 60 days following each event. This suggests that the stratosphere is unlikely to be the dominant source of the anomalous surface weather regimes discussed in Thompson et al

Climatology of Intrusions into the Tropical Upper Troposphere

Regions of upper tropospheric equatorial westerly winds, observed over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans during northern fall to spring, are important for extratropical-tropical interactions. This paper focuses on one feature of these “westerly ducts” that has received relatively little attention to date: the occurrence of Rossby wave breaking events that transport tongues of extratropical air deep into the tropics, mix tropical and subtropical air, and can affect deep convection. A climatology of these “intrusion” events formed from 20 years of meteorological analyses shows a strong dependence on the basic-state flow. Notably, intrusion events are found to occur almost exclusively within westerly ducts, with more events in the presence of stronger equatorial westerlies. It is also found that there is strong interannual variability in the frequency of Pacific events, with fewer events during the warm phases of ENSO (consistent with the changes in the basic flow). Since these intrusion events laterally mix trace constituents and have been linked to tropical convection, their spatial and temporal variability may cause related variability in the distribution of trace constituents and tropical convection

Drivers of the Recent Tropical Expansion in the Southern Hemisphere: Changing SSTs or Ozone Depletion?

Observational evidence indicates that the southern edge of the Hadley cell (HC) has shifted southward during austral summer in recent decades. However, there is no consensus on the cause of this shift, with several studies reaching opposite conclusions as to the relative role of changes in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and stratospheric ozone depletion in causing this shift. Here, the authors perform a meta-analysis of the extant literature on this subject and quantitatively compare the results of all published studies that have used single-forcing model integrations to isolate the role of different factors on the HC expansion during austral summer. It is shown that the weight of the evidence clearly points to stratospheric ozone depletion as the dominant driver of the tropical summertime expansion over the period in which an ozone hole was formed (1979 to late 1990s), although SST trends have contributed to trends since then. Studies that have claimed SSTs as the major driver of tropical expansion since 1979 have used prescribed ozone fields that underrepresent the observed Antarctic ozone depletion

Overview of Large-scale Tropospheric Transport in the Chemistry Climate Model Initiative (CCMI) Simulations

The transport of chemicals is a major uncertainty in the modeling of tropospheric composition. Here we compare the large-scale tropospheric transport properties among different models in the Chemistry Climate Modeling Initiative (CCMI) with a focus on transport defined with respect to the Northern Hemisphere (NH) midlatitude surface. Among simulations of the recent past (1980-2010) we show that there are substantial differences in their global-scale tropospheric transport properties. For example, the mean transit time since southern hemisphere air last contacted the NH midlatitude surface differs by ~30-40% among simulations. We show that these differences are most likely associated with differences in parameterized convection over the oceans, such that the spread in transport among simulations constrained with analysis fields is as large as the spread among free-running simulations

Does the Holton–Tan Mechanism Explain How the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation Modulates the Arctic Polar Vortex?

Idealized experiments with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) are used to explore the mechanism(s) whereby the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) modulates the Northern Hemisphere wintertime stratospheric polar vortex. Overall, the effect of the critical line emphasized in the Holton–Tan mechanism is less important than the effect of the mean meridional circulation associated with QBO winds for the polar response to the QBO. More specifically, the introduction of easterly winds at the equator near 50 hPa 1) causes enhanced synoptic-scale Eliassen–Palm flux (EPF) convergence in the subtropics from 150 to 50 hPa, which leads to the subtropical critical line moving poleward in the lower stratosphere, and 2) creates a barrier to planetary wave propagation from subpolar latitudes to midlatitudes in the middle and upper stratosphere (e.g., less equatorward EPF near 50°N), which leads to enhanced planetary wave convergence in the polar vortex region. These two effects are mechanistically distinct; while the former is related to the subtropical critical line, the latter is due to the mean meridional circulation of the QBO. All of these effects are consistent with linear theory, although the evolution of the entire wind distribution is only quasi-linear because induced zonal wind changes cause the wave driving to shift and thereby positively feed back on the zonal wind changes. Finally, downward propagation of the QBO in the equatorial stratosphere, upper stratospheric equatorial zonal wind, and changes in the tropospheric circulation appear to be less important than lower stratospheric easterlies for the polar stratospheric response. Overall, an easterly QBO wind anomaly in the lower stratosphere leads to a weakened stratospheric polar vortex, in agreement with previous studies, although not because of changes in the subtropical critical line

Ozone hole and Southern Hemisphere climate change

Climate change in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) has been robustly documented in the last several years. It has altered the atmospheric circulation in a surprising number of ways: a rising global tropopause, a poleward intensification of the westerly jet, a poleward shift in storm tracks, a poleward expansion of the Hadley cell, and many others. While these changes have been extensively related with anthropogenic warming resulting from the increase in greenhouse gases, their potential link to stratospheric cooling resulting from ozone depletion has only recently been examined and a comprehensive picture is still lacking. Examining model output from the coupled climate models participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment (AR4), and grouping them depending on the stratospheric ozone forcing used, we here show that stratospheric ozone affects the entire atmospheric circulation in the SH, from the polar regions to the subtropics, and from the stratosphere to the surface. Furthermore, model projections suggest that the anticipated ozone recovery, resulting from the implementation of the Montreal Protocol, will likely decelerate future climate change resulting from increased greenhouse gases, although it might accelerate surface warming over Antarctica

Large-Scale Transport Responses to Tropospheric Circulation Changes Using GEOS-5

The mean age since air was last at the Northern Hemisphere midlatitude surface is a fundamental property of tropospheric transport. Recent comparisons among chemistry climate models, however, reveal that there are large differences in the mean age among models and that these differences are most likely related to differences in tropical (parameterized) convection. Here we use aquaplanet simulations of the Goddard Earth Observing System Model Version 5 (GEOS-5) to explore the sensitivity of the mean age to changes in the tropical circulation. Tropical circulation changes are forced by prescribed localized off-equatorial warm sea surface temperature anomalies that (qualitatively) reproduce the convection and circulation differences among the comprehensive models. Idealized chemical species subject to prescribed OH loss are also integrated in parallel in order to illustrate the impact of tropical transport changes on interhemispheric constituent transport

Stratospheric Ozone Depletion: The Main Driver of Twentieth-Century Atmospheric Circulation Changes in the Southern Hemisphere

The importance of stratospheric ozone depletion on the atmospheric circulation of the troposphere is studied with an atmospheric general circulation model, the Community Atmospheric Model, version 3 (CAM3), for the second half of the twentieth century. In particular, the relative importance of ozone depletion is contrasted with that of increased greenhouse gases and accompanying sea surface temperature changes. By specifying ozone and greenhouse gas forcings independently, and performing long, time-slice integrations, it is shown that the impacts of ozone depletion are roughly 2–3 times larger than those associated with increased greenhouse gases, for the Southern Hemisphere tropospheric summer circulation. The formation of the ozone hole is shown to affect not only the polar tropopause and the latitudinal position of the midlatitude jet; it extends to the entire hemisphere, resulting in a broadening of the Hadley cell and a poleward extension of the subtropical dry zones. The CAM3 results are compared to and found to be in excellent agreement with those of the multimodel means of the recent Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP3) and Chemistry–Climate Model Validation (CCMVal2) simulations. This study, therefore, strongly suggests that most Southern Hemisphere tropospheric circulation changes, in austral summer over the second half of the twentieth century, have been caused by polar stratospheric ozone depletion