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Classification of stratospheric extreme events according to their downward propagation to the troposphere
Author(s) -
Runde T.,
Dameris M.,
Garny H.,
Kinnison D. E.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2016gl069569
Subject(s) - troposphere , stratosphere , geopotential height , polar vortex , atmospheric sciences , sudden stratospheric warming , climatology , environmental science , polar , geopotential , anomaly (physics) , perturbation (astronomy) , geology , meteorology , physics , precipitation , astronomy , condensed matter physics , quantum mechanics
This study presents a classification of stratospheric extreme events during northern winter into events with or without a consistent downward propagation of anomalies to the troposphere. Anomalous strong and weak stratospheric polar vortex events are detected from daily time series of the polar cap averaged (60°–90°N) geopotential height anomaly. The method is applied to chemistry‐climate model data (E39CA and WACCM3.5) and reanalyses data (ERA40). The analyses show that in about 80% of all events no significant tropospheric response can be detected. The stratospheric perturbation of both weak and strong events with a significant tropospheric response persists significantly longer throughout the stratosphere compared to the events without a tropospheric response. The strength of the stratospheric perturbation determines the strength of the tropospheric response only to a small degree. Results are consistent across all three data sets.