Search results for "Troposphere"

Stratosphere–Troposphere Exchange and Its Relation to Potential Vorticity Streamers and Cutoffs near the Extratropical Tropopause

2007

Abstract Two distinct dynamical processes near the dynamical tropopause (2-PVU surface) and their relation are discussed in this study: stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE) and the formation of distinct potential vorticity (PV) structures in the form of stratospheric and tropospheric streamers and cutoffs on isentropic surfaces. Two previously compiled climatologies based upon the 15-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Re-Analysis (ERA-15) dataset (from 1979 to 1993) are used to establish and quantify the link between STE and these PV structures. An event-based analysis reveals a strong relation between the two processes. For instance, on isentropes below 320 K, 30%–50%…

A Global Climatology of Tropical Moisture Exports

2013

Abstract In a recent paper, a climatology of tropical moisture exports (TMEs) to the Northern Hemisphere (NH) was constructed on the basis of 7-day forward trajectories, started daily from the tropical lower troposphere, which were required to reach a water vapor flux of at least 100 g kg−1 m s−1 somewhere north of 35°N. It was shown that TMEs contribute significantly to regional precipitation. Here, the authors complement and extend this work by (i) using 6-hourly European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) data from 1979 to 2010 instead of the earlier 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40), (ii) extending the climatology to the Southern Hemispher…

Resolution Dependence of the Tropopause Inversion Layer in an Idealized Model for Upper-Tropospheric Anticyclones

2009

Abstract This note investigates the dependence of the extratropical tropopause inversion layer (TIL) on numerical resolution in an idealized modeling framework. Axisymmetric upper-tropospheric anticyclones are constructed by specifying potential vorticity (PV) and solving the nonlinear PV-inversion problem. The PV distribution has a smooth but near-discontinuous change of PV across the tropopause in a transition zone with vertical depth δ. For fixed δ the strength of the TIL changes with changing resolution until the transition zone is resolved by a fairly large number of grid points. The quality-controlled numerical solutions are used to study the behavior for δ → 0. This limit can lead to…

Identifying Rossby wave trains and quantifying their properties

2013

A novel method is introduced to automatically identify upper-level Rossby wave trains and to objectively diagnose their properties. Based on the envelope of the upper tropospheric meridional wind represented in a Hovmoller diagram, the algorithm identifies individual Rossby wave trains as objects. These depend to some extent on user defined parameters. The utility of the method is demonstrated in two areas of application. First, the skill of a particular numerical weather prediction model is analysed for a specific case of a long-lived Rossby wave train. For this purpose, a novel diagnostic is designed based on a Hovmoller diagram of the Rossby wave train objects that contains forecast data…

2021

Abstract. Homogeneous freezing of aqueous solution aerosol particles is an important process for cloud ice formation in the upper troposphere. There the air temperature is low, the ice supersaturation can be high and the concentration of ice-nucleating particles is too low to initiate and dominate cirrus cloud formation by heterogeneous ice nucleation processes. The most common description to quantify homogeneous freezing processes is based on the water activity criterion (WAC) as proposed by Koop et al. (2000). The WAC describes the homogeneous nucleation rate coefficients only as a function of the water activity, which makes this approach well applicable in numerical models. In this study…

Climatology of the average water-soluble volume fraction of atmospheric aerosol

2007

The average water-soluble volume fraction of atmospheric aerosol particles was inferred from measurements at three different locations across Central Europe. Together with a comprehensive literature review these data sets are classified into four aerosol types. The classified data are parameterized as a function of particle size using a logarithmic normal distribution function, which seems most appropriate to represent the hygroscopicity maximum in the accumulation size range. This parameterization can be used as a simplified input parameter for various model calculations. In addition, a summary on water-soluble volume fractions and hygroscopic growth factors is presented along with a short…

Long-lived Rossby wave trains as precursors to strong winter cyclones over Europe

2013

The statistical connection between strong surface cyclones over Europe and long-lived upper-tropospheric Rossby wave trains is examined for the Northern Hemisphere winter season using 45 years of reanalysis data. Dates are selected for which the surface pressure anomaly over Central Europe is below a threshold yielding the 5% of lowest values. Composites of upper tropospheric meridional wind for these dates (including a lead or lag in time) display clear signs of a wave train. The composite wave train lives for over two weeks and propagates eastward over more than 360° longitude. The phase speed of individual lows and highs, by contrast, is close to zero and the same is true for the composi…

Definition and predictability of an OLR based West African monsoon onset

2008

The monsoon onset is documented in terms of latitudinal shift of deep convection areas within the ITCZ using an interpolated version of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) at a 5-day time-step over West Africa for the period 1979–2004. Signals in moist convection derived from OLR values lower than 180 W/m2 allow better determination of onset dates (ODs) than the use of other thresholds or of the raw values of OLR. Such ODs are defined without any time filtering or spatial averaging along the meridional plane. They are also significantly correlated with ODs based on other datasets such as the CMAP and Global Precipitation Climatology P…

2010

Abstract. As a major source region of the hydroxyl radical OH, the Tropics largely control the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere on a global scale. However, emissions of hydrocarbons from the tropical rainforest that react rapidly with OH can potentially deplete the amount of OH and thereby reduce the oxidation capacity. The airborne GABRIEL field campaign in equatorial South America (Suriname) in October 2005 investigated the influence of the tropical rainforest on the HOx budget (HOx = OH + HO2). The first observations of OH and HO2 over a tropical rainforest are compared to steady state concentrations calculated with the atmospheric chemistry box model MECCA. The important precursors …

Seasonal cycles and variability of O<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O in the UT/LMS during SPURT

2005

Abstract. Airborne high resolution in situ measurements of a large set of trace gases including ozone (O3) and total water (H2O) in the upper troposphere and the lowermost stratosphere (UT/LMS) have been performed above Europe within the SPURT project. With its innovative campaign concept, SPURT provides an extensive data coverage of the UT/LMS in each season within the time period between November 2001 and July 2003. Ozone volume mixing ratios in the LMS show a distinct spring maximum and autumn minimum, whereas the O3 seasonal cycle in the UT is shifted by 2 to 3 month later towards the end of the year. The more variable H2O measurements reveal a maximum during spring/summer and a minimum…