Identification

Title

Atmospheric chemistry signatures of an equatorially symmetric Matsuno-Gill circulation pattern

Abstract

Matsuno-Gill circulations have been widely studied in tropical meteorology, but their impact on stratospheric chemistry has seldom been explicitly evaluated. This study demonstrates that, in a model nudged to reanalysis, anticyclonic Rossby wave gyres that form near the tropopause as a result of equatorially symmetric heating in the troposphere provide a dynamical mechanism to influence tropical and subtropical atmospheric chemistry during near-equinox months. The anticyclonic flow entrains extratropical air from higher latitudes into the deep tropics of both hemispheres and induces cooling in the already cold upper-troposphere/lower-stratosphere (UTLS) region. Both of these aspects of the circulation allow heterogeneous chlorine activation on sulfuric acid aerosols to proceed rapidly, primarily via the HCl + ClONO2 reaction. Precipitation rates and heating rates from reanalysis are shown to be consistent with these heating and circulation response patterns in the months of interest. This study analyzes specified dynamics simulations from the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (SD-WACCM) with and without tropical heterogeneous chemistry to demonstrate that these circulations influence substantially the distributions of, for example, NO2 and ClO in the UTLS tropics and subtropics of both hemispheres. This provides a previously unrecognized dynamical influence on the spatial structures of atmospheric composition changes in the UTLS during near-equinox months.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7ks6vzh

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

2021-01-01T00:00:00Z

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