Identification

Title

Influence of stratosphere polar vortex variability on the mesosphere, thermosphere, and ionosphere

Abstract

The Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with thermosphere-ionosphere eXtension (WACCM-X) is used to investigate the influence of stratosphere polar vortex variability on the mesosphere, thermosphere, and ionosphere during Northern Hemisphere winter. Based on 40 simulated Northern Hemisphere winters, the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) residual circulation is found to depend on whether the stratosphere polar vortex is strong or weak. In particular, during weak stratosphere polar vortex time periods, the MLT circulation anomalies are characterized by clockwise and anti-clockwise flow in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, respectively. Opposite, though weaker, anomalies are found to occur during time periods when the stratosphere polar vortex is strong. The MLT circulation anomalies influence the composition of the lower thermosphere, leading to +/- 5% changes in the thermosphere column integrated atomic oxygen to molecular nitrogen ratio (SO/N-2). Large differences between strong and weak stratosphere polar vortex events are also found to occur in the semidiurnal migrating tide (SW2) in the MLT, which leads to +/- 15%-20% differences in the SW2 component of the ionosphere total electron content (TEC) at low latitudes. The WACCM-X simulation results indicate that variability in the stratosphere polar vortex can explain similar to 30% and similar to 18% of the quiet time variability in thermosphere SO/N-2 and the SW2 component of TEC during Northern Hemisphere winter, respectively.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d78k7f3v

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

2023-07-01T00:00:00Z

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

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