The SPARC intercomparison of middle-atmosphere climatologies

An updated assessment of uncertainties in "observed" climatological winds and temperatures in the middle atmosphere (over altitudes ~10-80 km) is provided by detailed intercomparisons of contemporary and historic datasets. These datasets include global meteorological analyses and assimilations, climatologies derived from research satellite measurements, historical reference atmosphere circulation statistics, rocketsonde wind and temperature data, and lidar temperature measurements. The comparisons focus on a few basic circulation statistics (temperatures and zonal winds), with special attention given to tropical variability. Notable differences are found between analyses for temperatures near the tropical tropopause and polar lower stratosphere, temperatures near the global stratopause, and zonal winds throughout the Tropics. Comparisons of historical reference atmosphere and rocketsonde temperatures with more recent global analyses show the influence of decadal-scale cooling of the stratosphere and mesosphere. Detailed comparisons of the tropical semiannual oscillation (SAO) and quasi- biennial oscillation (QBO) show large differences in amplitude between analyses; recent data assimilation schemes show the best agreement with equatorial radiosonde, rocket, and satellite data.

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Copyright 2004 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 of the U.S. Copyright Act or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the AMS's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, requires written permission or a license form the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy, available on the AMS Web site located at (http://www.ametsoc.org/AMS) or from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or copyright@ametsoc.org.
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Author Randel, William
Udelhofen, Petra
Fleming, Eric
Geller, Marvin
Gelman, Mel
Hamilton, Kevin
Karoly, David
Ortland, Dave
Pawson, Steve
Swinbank, Richard
Wu, Fei
Baldwin, Mark
Chanin, Marie-Lise
Keckhut, Philippe
Labitzke, Karen
Remsberg, Ellis
Simmons, Adrian
Wu, Dong
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2004-03-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:51:52.869907
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:10226
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Randel, William, Udelhofen, Petra, Fleming, Eric, Geller, Marvin, Gelman, Mel, Hamilton, Kevin, Karoly, David, Ortland, Dave, Pawson, Steve, Swinbank, Richard, Wu, Fei, Baldwin, Mark, Chanin, Marie-Lise, Keckhut, Philippe, Labitzke, Karen, Remsberg, Ellis, Simmons, Adrian, Wu, Dong. (2004). The SPARC intercomparison of middle-atmosphere climatologies. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d76110wc. Accessed 27 July 2025.

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