Identification

Title

A climatology of elevated stratopause events in the whole atmosphere community climate model

Abstract

Elevated stratopause (ES) events occurring during Northern Hemisphere winter are identified in four climate simulations of the period 1953–2005 made with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). We find 68 ES events in 212 winters. These events are found in winters when the middle atmosphere is disturbed and there are zonal wind reversals in the stratosphere at high latitudes. These disturbances can be associated with both major and minor stratospheric sudden warming events (SSWs). The ES events occur under conditions where the stratospheric jet, the gravity wave forcing, and the residual circulation remain reversed longer than in those winters where an SSW occurs without an ES. We compare ES events with the type of SSW (vortex splitting and vortex displacement) and find that 68% of ES events form after vortex splitting events. We also present a climatology of ES events based on NASA's Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications reanalysis data from 1979 to 2012 and compare it to the model results. WACCM composites of major SSW and ES also show enhanced Eliassen-Palm flux divergences in the upper mesosphere after the stratospheric warming, immediately before the formation of an ES. However, the formation of an ES in WACCM is due primarily to adiabatic heating from gravity wave-driven downwelling, which follows the reestablishment of the eastward jet in the upper stratosphere. We find nine winters where an ES forms in the absence of any significant planetary wave activity in the upper mesosphere and illustrate one such event.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7n29xsm

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

2013-02-16T00:00:00Z

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