Dynamics of the Disrupted 2015-16 Quasi-Biennial Oscillation

A significant disruption of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) occurred during the Northern Hemisphere (NH) winter of 2015--16. Since the QBO is the major wind variability source in the tropical lower stratosphere and influences the rate of ascent of air entering the stratosphere, understanding the cause of this singular disruption may provide new insights into the variability and sensitivity of the global climate system. Here we examine this disruptive event using global reanalysis winds and temperatures from 1980-2016. Results reveal record maxima in tropical horizontal momentum fluxes and wave forcing of the tropical zonal mean zonal wind over the NH 2015-16 winter. The Rossby waves responsible for these record tropical values appear to originate in the NH and were focused strongly into the tropics at the 40 hPa level. Two additional NH winters, 1987-88 and 2010-11 were also found to have large, tropical lower stratosphere, momentum flux divergences; however, the QBO westerlies did not change to easterlies in those cases

Towards A Representation of Vertically Resolved Ozone Changes in Reanalyses

The Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Radiometer (SBUV) instruments on NASA and NOAA spacecraft provide a long-term record of total-column ozone and deep-layer partial columns since about 1980. These data have been carefully processed to extract long-term trends and offer a valuable resource for ozone monitoring. Studies assimilating limb-sounding observations in the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) data assimilation system (DAS) demonstrate that vertical ozone gradients in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) are much better represented than with the deep-layer SBUV observations. This is exemplified by the use of retrieved ozone from the EOS Microwave Limb Sounder (EOS-MLS) instrument in the MERRA-2 reanalysis, for the period after 2004. This study examines the potential for extending the use of limb-sounding observations at earlier times and into the future, so that future reanalyses may be more applicable to the study of long-term ozone changes.Historical data are available from NASA instruments: the Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere (LIMS: 1978-1979); the Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite (UARS: 1991-1995); Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER: 2000-onwards). For the post EOS-MLS period, the joint NASA-NOAA Ozone Monitoring and Profiling Suite Limb Profiler (OMPS-LP) instrument was launched on the Suomi-NPP platform in 201x and is planned for future platforms. This study will examine two aspects of these data pertaining to future reanalyses. First, the feasibility of merging the EOS-MLS and OMPS-LP instruments to provide a long-term record that extends beyond the potential lifetime of EOS-MLS. If feasible, this would allow for long-term monitoring of ozone recovery in a three-dimensional reanalysis context. Second, the skill of the GEOS DAS in ingesting historical data types will be investigated. Because these do not overlap with EOS-MLS, use will be made of system statistics and evaluation using independent datasets. Impacts of using a complete ozone chemistry module will also be considered

The Major Stratospheric Sudden Warming of January 2013: Analyses and Forecasts in the GEOS-5 Data Assimilation System

We examine the major stratosphere sudden warming (SSW) that occurred on 6 January 2013, using output from the NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) GEOS-5 (Goddard Earth Observing System) near-real-time data assimilation system (DAS). Results show that the major SSW of January 2013 falls into the vortex splitting type of SSW, with the initial planetary wave breaking occurring near 10 hPa. The vertical flux of wave activity at the tropopause responsible for the SSW occurred mainly in the Pacific Hemisphere, including the a pulse associated with the preconditioning of the polar vortex by wave 1 identified on 23 December 2012. While most of the vertical wave activity flux was in the Pacific Hemisphere, a rapidly developing tropospheric weather system over the North Atlantic on 28 December is shown to have produced a strong transient upward wave activity flux into the lower stratosphere coinciding with the peak of the SSW event. In addition, the GEOS-5 5-day forecasts accurately predicted the major SSW of January 2013 as well as the upper tropospheric disturbances responsible for the warming. The overall success of the 5-day forecasts provides motivation to produce regular 10-day forecasts with GEOS-5, to better support studies of stratosphere-troposphere interaction

Cryopreservation of Paramecium bursaria Chlorella Virus-1 during an active infection cycle of its host

Best practices in laboratory culture management often include cryopreservation of microbiota, but this can be challenging with some virus particles. By preserving viral isolates researchers can mitigate genetic drift and laboratory-induced selection, thereby maintaining genetically consistent strains between experiments. To this end, we developed a method to cryopreserve the model, green-alga infecting virus, Paramecium bursaria Chlorella virus 1 (PBCV-1). We explored cryotolerance of the infectivity of this virus particle, whereby freezing without cryoprotectants was found to maintain the highest infectivity (~2.5%). We then assessed the cryopreservation potential of PBCV-1 during an active infection cycle in its Chlorella variabilisNC64A host, and found that virus survivorship was highest (69.5 ± 16.5%) when the infected host is cryopreserved during mid-late stages of infection (i.e., coinciding with virion assembly). The most optimal condition for cryopreservation was observed at 240 minutes post-infection. Overall, utilizing the cell as a vehicle for viral cryopreservation resulted in 24.9–30.1 fold increases in PBCV-1 survival based on 95% confidence intervals of frozen virus particles and virus cryopreserved at 240 minutes post-infection. Given that cryoprotectants are often naturally produced by psychrophilic organisms, we suspect that cryopreservation of infected hosts may be a reliable mechanism for virus persistence in non-growth permitting circumstances in the environment, such as ancient permafrosts

Global Assimilation of Loon Stratospheric Balloon Observations

Project Loon has an overall goal of providing worldwide internet coverage using a network of long-durationsuper-pressure balloons. Since 2013, Loon has launched over 1600 balloons from multiple tropical and middlelatitude locations. These GPS tracked balloon trajectories provide lower stratospheric wind information overthe oceans and remote land areas where traditional radiosonde soundings are sparse, thus providing uniquecoverage of lower stratospheric winds. To fully investigate these Loon winds we: 1) compare the Loon windsto winds produced by a global data assimilation system (DAS: NASA GEOS) and 2) assimilate the Loon windsinto the same comprehensive DAS. Results show that in middle latitudes the Loon winds and DAS winds agreewell, and the Loon wind assimilation has only a minor impact on the forecasts. However, in the Tropics, thereis often a substantial difference between the assimilated winds and the observed Loon winds, of 8 m/s or morein magnitude. In these cases, assimilating the Loon winds significantly improves the meteorological analysesand subsequently the forecasts of the Loon winds. By highlighting cases where the Loon and DAS winds differ,these results can lead to improved understanding of stratospheric winds, especially in the tropics, as well asaiding analyses of the representation of dynamical forcing mechanisms in the GEOS model

The Stratospheric Warming of 2018 in Context of the Earth System

The major stratospheric sudden warming in February 2018 occurred in unison with changes throughout the troposphere in the northern hemisphere. Changes in large-scale dynamics and regional weather patterns are described in this study, along with features in major features of the Earth system, such as sea ice. The focus is on analyses using the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) analyses, weather prediction, and seasonal forecasts. Specific topics to discuss include: - The morphology of the sudden warming, including planetary waves in the troposphere and stratosphere.- Relationships with weather over North America. - Warming over the Arctic and anomalous sea-ice distributions. - Predictability on the one-to-four week timescales. The predictions will be based on routine products generated using the GEOS systems, as well as targeted experiments that focus on the roles of different mechanisms (such as ice-atmosphere interactions)

Recovery of the Disrupted Quasi-Biennial Oscillation

There occurred a unique and significant disruption of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) during the Northern Hemisphere winter of 2015-16. Here we document the return of the QBO to its normal downward phase speed and period based on Singapore soundings, MERRA-2 re-analysis (Modern Era Retrospective Reanalysis for Research and Applications), and a simple QBO model. Daily averaged zonal winds from 100-10 hPa are used to characterized the behavior of the QBO's amplitude and phase as seen in the first two EOFs (Empirical Orthogonal Functions). These EOFs capture the QBO structure and evolution during the pre-disruption, disruption, and post-disruption times. Results show that the amplitude and phase returned to normal by June 2016, however the post-disruption QBO phase was delayed relative to the pre-disruption phase by four tenths of a QBO cycle (~11 months). A rapid, seasonal, phase shift of this magnitude is shown to be unique in the QBO observational record

Use Of EOS-AURA Observation In The MERRA-2 Reanalysis

Meteorological reanalyses provide multi-year gridded datasets that describe the evolution of the atmosphere. Such products use a data assimilation system, comprising of an atmospheric model, a broad suite of observations, and an analysis system that optimally combines the model forecast with the observations, using an algorithm that includes information about model and data accuracy. The mixture of observations is of central importance to the quality of the assimilated datasets. The Modern-era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) included constraints on the thermal structure of the middle atmosphere from nadir sounders on the NOAA polar-orbiting platforms (Stratospheric Sounding Units and Advanced Microwave Sounding Units). These instruments have peak sensitivities that occur well below the stratopause. As such, the radiance measurements do not provide strong constraints on stratopause temperature. The new MERRA-2 reanalysis is using EOS-MLS temperature retrievals after they are available: it will be demonstrated that these data lead to a more realistic stratopause structure in MERRA-2 than in MERRA. Similarly, the work demonstrates the improvements in lower stratospheric ozone in MERRA-2 than in MERRA, for the period when EOS-MLS ozone data are assimilated. This improvement occurs because of the ozone profile information offered by MLS in the low stratosphere, in contrast to the SBUV/2 data used for the rest of MERRA-2. The impacts of choosing to use the EOS-MLS datasets are discussed in context of the continuity of the data record in MERRA- 2