Identification

Title

Climatological characteristics of arctic and antartic surface-based inversions

Abstract

Surface-based inversions (SBI) are frequent features of the Arctic and Antarctic atmospheric boundary layer. They influence vertical mixing of energy, moisture and pollutants, cloud formation, and surface ozone destruction. Their climatic variability is related to that of sea ice and planetary albedo, important factors in climate feedback mechanisms. However, climatological polar SBI properties have not been fully characterized, nor have climate model simulations of SBIs been compared comprehensively to observations. Using 20 yr of twice-daily observations from 39 Arctic and 6 Antarctic radiosonde stations, this study examines the spatial and temporal variability of three SBI characteristics -frequency of occurrence, depth (from the surface to the inversion top), and intensity (temperature difference over the SBI depth) - and relationships among them. In both polar regions, SBIs are more frequent, deeper, and stronger in winter and autumn than in summer and spring. In the Arctic, these tendencies increase from the Norwegian Sea eastward toward the East Siberian Sea, associated both with (seasonal and diurnal) variations in solar elevation angle at the standard radiosonde observation times and with differences between continental and maritime climates. Two state-of-the-art climate models and one reanalysis dataset show similar seasonal patterns and spatial distributions of SBI properties as the radiosonde observations, but with biases in their magnitudes that differ among the models and that are smaller in winter and autumn than in spring and summer. SBI frequency, depth and intensity are positively correlated, both spatially and temporally, and all three are anti-correlated with surface temperature.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d71v5fkz

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2011-10-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Copyright 2011 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org. Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact