Over the tropics, convection, wind shear (i.e., vertical and horizontal shear of wind and/or geostrophic adjustment comprising spontaneous imbalance in jet streams) and topography are the major sources for the generation of gravity waves. During the summer monsoon season (June August) over the Indian subcontinent, convection and wind shear coexist. To determine the dominant source of gravity waves during monsoon season, an experiment was conducted using mesosphere-stratosphere-troposphere (MST) radar situated at Gadanki (13.5°N, 79.2°E), a tropical observatory in the southern part of the Indian subcontinent. MST radar was operated continuously for 72 h to capture high-frequency gravity waves. During this time, a radiosonde was released every 6 h in addition to the regular launch (once daily to study low-frequency gravity waves) throughout the season. These two data sets were utilized effectively to characterize the jet stream and the associated gravity waves. Data available from collocated instruments along with satellite-based brightness temperature (TBB) data were utilized to characterize the convection in and around Gadanki. Despite the presence of two major sources of gravity wave generation (i.e., convection and wind shear) during the monsoon season, wind shear (both vertical shear and geostrophic adjustment) contributed the most to the generation of gravity waves on various scales.
Based on the ERA-40 reanalysis data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the output of ECHAM5/MPI-OM, this study investigated the interactions between the quasi-stationary planetary wave (SPW) and mean flow, and their responses to El Ni o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events in the northern hemispheric stratosphere. Results show that the activity of SPW is the strongest in winter, when the SPW propagates along the polar waveguide into the stratosphere and along the low-latitude waveguide to the subtropical tropopause. The analysis of three dimensional SPW structure indicates that the main sources of SPW activity are located over the Eurasian continent and the North Pacific north of 45°N. On the one hand, the two waveguides of the SPW reflect the influence of mean flow on the propagation of the SPW. On the other hand, the upward propagating SPW can interact with the stratospheric mean flow, leading to deceleration of the zonal mean westerly. Furthermore, the SPW exhibits clear responses to ENSO events. During El Ni o winters, the SPW in the stratosphere tends to propagate more upward and poleward. Its interactions with mean flow can induce a dipole pattern in zonal mean zonal winds, with accelerated westerly winds at low-middle latitudes and decelerated westerly winds at high latitudes. The ECHAM5/MPI-OM model reproduces the climatology of the SPW well. Although the simulated SPW is slightly weaker than the observations in the stratosphere, the model's performance has significant improvements compared with other GCMs used in previous studies. However, there are still some problems in the responses of the SPW to ENSO in the model. Although the model reproduces the responses of both the amplitude and the SPW-mean flow interactions to ENSO well in the troposphere, the stratospheric responses are quite weak. Therefore, further studies are needed to improve the simulation of the stratospheric atmospheric circulation and related dynamical processes.
The local features of transient kinetic energy and available potential energy were investigated using ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) Interim Reanalysis data for the stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) event of January 2009. The Western Europe high plays important roles in the propagation of the energy from North America to Eurasian. When the Western Europe high appeared and shifted eastward, energy conversions increased and energy propagated from North America to Eurasian as a form of interaction energy flow. The baroclinic conversion between transient-eddy kinetic energy (Ke) and transient-eddy available potential energy (Ae) and the horizontal advection of geopotential height were approximately one order of magnitude less than Ke and Ae generation terms. So, these terms were less important to this SSW event.
Diagnosis of changes in the winter stratospheric circulation in the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) scenarios simulated by the Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model, second version spectrum (FGOALS-s2), indicates that the model can generally reproduce the present climatology of the stratosphere and can capture the general features of its long-term changes during 1950-2000, including the global stratospheric cooling and the strengthening of the westerly polar jet, though the simulated polar vortex is much cooler, the jet is much stronger, and the projected changes are generally weaker than those revealed by observation data. With the increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) effect in the historical simu- lation from 1850 to 2005 (called the HISTORICAL run) and the two future projections for Representative Concentration Pathways (called the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios) from 2006 to 2100, the stratospheric response was generally steady, with an increasing stratospheric cooling and a strengthening polar jet ex- tending equatorward. Correspondingly, the leading oscillation mode, defined as the Polar Vortex Oscillation (PVO), exhibited a clear positive trend in each scenario, confirming the steady strengthening of the polar vortex. However, the positive trend of the PVO and the strengthening of the polar jet were not accompa- nied by decreased planetary-wave dynamical heating, suggesting that the cause of the positive PVO trend and the polar stratospheric cooling trend is probably the radiation cooling effect due to increase in GHGs. Nevertheless, without the long-term linear trend, the temporal variations of the wave dynamic heating, the PVO, and the polar stratospheric temperature are still closely coupled in the interannual and decadal time scales.
利用1979~2010年NCEP-DOE 2逐日再分析资料,以北半球春季平流层极夜急流核心纬带(65°~75°N)纬向平均纬向风最后一次转为东风的日期定义为春季平流层最后增温事件(SFW)的爆发日期,研究发现,SFW事件平均在4月中下旬发生,且由平流层高层向低层依次滞后,10 hPa的SFW爆发平均超前50 hPa约13天;爆发当日伴随纬向风场时间变率和行星波辐合的最大值,平流层环流实现由冬向夏的季节转换;过去32年以来SFW的爆发早晚具有显著的年际变化,最早的SFW事件发生在3月中旬,最晚的SFW事件在5月下旬才出现.合成分析表明,SFW爆发偏早(晚)年的春季,纬向风场由西风向东风的转变更为快速(缓慢),爆发前5天至爆发后5天,30 hPa纬向风减小约20 m s-1(5 m s-1),伴随的平流层行星波活动也相对较强(弱);表现在环流异常场上,SFW爆发前后平流层极区环流异常呈反(同)位相分布,表明发生较早的SFW事件主要受波强迫驱动而伴随爆发性增温,而发生较晚的SFW事件则更反映了极涡的季节变化特征.无论SFW偏早还是偏晚年,爆发后极区平流层与对流层温度异常之间均呈反位相关系,反映了SFW爆发事件中的平流层-对流层动力耦合特征.另外,在20世纪90年代中期前后,SFW爆发日期还存在明显的年代际转折,90年代中期之前SFW平均发生日期较之后约偏早11天;与之相联系的是冬末、春初行星波活动在90年代中期之前偏强,而在90年代中期之后有偏弱趋势.