A New Look at Stratospheric Sudden Warmings. Part I: Climatology and Modeling Benchmarks

Andrew J. Charlton; Lorenzo M. Polvani

doi:10.1175/jcli3996.1

journal article Feb 01, 2007

A New Look at Stratospheric Sudden Warmings. Part I: Climatology and Modeling Benchmarks

Andrew J. Charlton Lorenzo M. Polvani

Journal of Climate Vol. 20 No. 3 pp. 449-469 · American Meteorological Society

View at Publisher Save 10.1175/jcli3996.1

Abstract

Abstract
Stratospheric sudden warmings are the clearest and strongest manifestation of dynamical coupling in the stratosphere–troposphere system. While many sudden warmings have been individually documented in the literature, this study aims at constructing a comprehensive climatology: all major midwinter warming events are identified and classified, in both the NCEP–NCAR and 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) datasets. To accomplish this a new, objective identification algorithm is developed. This algorithm identifies sudden warmings based on the zonal mean zonal wind at 60°N and 10 hPa, and classifies them into events that do and do not split the stratospheric polar vortex.
Major midwinter stratospheric sudden warmings are found to occur with a frequency of approximately six events per decade, and 46% of warming events lead to a splitting of the stratospheric polar vortex. The dynamics of vortex splitting events is contrasted to that of events where the vortex is merely displaced off the pole. In the stratosphere, the two types of events are found to be dynamically distinct: vortex splitting events occur after a clear preconditioning of the polar vortex, and their influence on middle-stratospheric temperatures lasts for up to 20 days longer than vortex displacement events. In contrast, the influence of sudden warmings on the tropospheric state is found to be largely insensitive to the event type.
Finally, a table of dynamical benchmarks for major stratospheric sudden warming events is compiled. These benchmarks are used in a companion study to evaluate current numerical model simulations of the stratosphere.

Topics

No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →

References

60

[1]

Adams "SPHEREPACK 3.0: A model development facility." Mon. Wea. Rev. (1999) 10.1175/1520-0493(1999)127<1872:samdf>2.0.co;2

[2]

Andrews "Middle Atmosphere Dynamics." (1985)

[3]

Baldwin "Climatology of the stratospheric polar vortex and planetary wave breaking." J. Atmos. Sci. (1988) 10.1175/1520-0469(1988)045<1123:cotspv>2.0.co;2

[4]

Baldwin "The stratospheric major warming of early December 1987." J. Atmos. Sci. (1989) 10.1175/1520-0469(1989)046<2863:tsmwoe>2.0.co;2

[5]

Baldwin "Stratospheric effects of ENSO-related tropospheric circulation anomalies." J. Climate (1995) 10.1175/1520-0442(1995)008<0649:seoert>2.0.co;2

[6]

Stratospheric Harbingers of Anomalous Weather Regimes

Mark P. Baldwin, Timothy J. Dunkerton

Science 2001 10.1126/science.1063315

[7]

Castleman "Digital Image Processing." (1996)

[8]

Charlton "Sensitivity of tropospheric forecasts to stratospheric initial conditions." Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc. (2004) 10.1256/qj.03.167

[9]

Eyring, V. , and Coauthors, 2004: Comprehensive summary on the Workshop on Process-Oriented Validation of Couple Chemistry-Climate Models. SPARC Newsletter, No. 23, SPARC Office, Toronto, ON, Canada, 5–11.

[10]

Finger "The mid-winter 1963 stratospheric warming and circulation change." J. Appl. Meteor. (1964) 10.1175/1520-0450(1964)003<0001:tmwswa>2.0.co;2

[11]

Fusco "Interannual variations of total ozone and their relationship to variations in planetary wave activity." J. Climate (1999) 10.1175/1520-0442(1999)012<1619:ivotoa>2.0.co;2

[12]

Gillett "Simulation of recent Southern Hemisphere climate change." Science (2003) 10.1126/science.1087440

[13]

Hare "The disturbed circulation of the arctic stratosphere." J. Meteor. (1960) 10.1175/1520-0469(1960)017<0036:tdcota>2.0.co;2

[14]

Hu "Interannual and decadal variations of planetary wave activity, stratospheric cooling, and the Northern Hemisphere Annular Mode." J. Climate (2002) 10.1175/1520-0442(2002)015<1659:iadvop>2.0.co;2

[15]

Jacobi "Response of the mesopause region dynamics to the February 2001 stratospheric warming." J. Atmos. Terr. Phys. (2003) 10.1016/s1364-6826(03)00086-5

[16]

Johnson "Proposed indices characterizing stratospheric circulation and temperature fields." Mon. Wea. Rev. (1969) 10.1175/1520-0493(1969)097<0565:picsca>2.3.co;2

[17]

Kallberg, P., A.Simmons, S.Uppala, and M.Fuentes, 2004: The ERA-40 archive. ERA-40 Project Report Series, No. 17, ECMWF, 31 pp.

[18]

The NCEP–NCAR 50–Year Reanalysis: Monthly Means CD–ROM and Documentation

Robert Kistler, William Collins, Suranjana Saha et al.

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 2001 10.1175/1520-0477(2001)082<0247:tnnyrm>2.3.co;2

[19]

Kruger "The unusual midwinter warming in the Southern Hemisphere stratosphere 2002: A comparison to Northern Hemisphere phenomena." J. Atmos. Sci. (2005) 10.1175/jas-3316.1

[20]

Labitzke "Interannual variability of the winter stratosphere in the Northern Hemisphere." Mon. Wea. Rev. (1977) 10.1175/1520-0493(1977)105<0762:ivotws>2.0.co;2

[21]

Labitzke "Stratospheric-mesospheric disturbances: A summary of observed characteristics." J. Geophys. Res. (1981) 10.1029/jc086ic10p09665

[22]

Labitzke, K., and B.Naujokat, 2000: The Lower Arctic Stratosphere since 1952. SPARC Newsletter, No. 15, SPARC Office, Toronto, ON, Canada.

[23]

Limpasuvan "The life cycle of the Northern Hemisphere sudden stratospheric warmings." J. Climate (2004) 10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<2584:tlcotn>2.0.co;2

[24]

Manney "Simulation of the December 1998 stratospheric major warming." Geophys. Res. Lett. (1999) 10.1029/1999gl900516

[25]

Manney "The remarkable 2003–2004 winter and other recent warm winters in the Arctic stratosphere since the late 1990s." J. Geophys. Res. (2005) 10.1029/2004jd005367

[26]

Matsuno "A dynamical model of stratospheric warmings." J. Atmos. Sci. (1971) 10.1175/1520-0469(1971)028<1479:admots>2.0.co;2

[27]

McIntyre "How well do we understand the dynamics of stratospheric warmings?" J. Meteor. Soc. Japan (1982) 10.2151/jmsj1965.60.1_37

[28]

Nakagawa "What kind of stratospheric sudden warming propagates to the troposphere?" Geophys. Res. Lett. (2006) 10.1029/2005gl024784

[29]

Nash "An objective determination of the polar vortex edge using Ertels potential vorticity." J. Geophys. Res. (1996) 10.1029/96jd00066

[30]

Naujokat, B., and K.Labitzke, 1993: Collection of reports on the stratospheric circulation during the winters 1974/75–1991/2. Scientific Commission on Solar Terrestrial Physics, Rep. 1, 301 pp.

[31]

Naujokat "The early major warming in December 2001—Exceptional?" Geophys. Res. Lett. (2002) 10.1029/2002gl015316

[32]

Newman "Stratospheric thermal damping times." Geophys. Res. Lett. (1997) 10.1029/96gl03720

[33]

Newman "What controls the temperature of the Arctic stratosphere during the spring?" J. Geophys. Res. (2001) 10.1029/2000jd000061

[34]

Norton "Sensitivity of Northern Hemisphere surface climate to simulation of the stratospheric polar vortex." Geophys. Res. Lett. (2003) 10.1029/2003gl016958

[35]

O’Neill "Stratospheric sudden warmings." (2003)

[36]

O’Neill "Stratospheric warmings diagnosed using the transformed Eulerian-mean equations and the effect of the mean state on wave propagation." J. Atmos. Sci. (1982) 10.1175/1520-0469(1982)039<1370:swdutt>2.0.co;2

[37]

Palmer "Diagnostic study of a wavenumber-2 stratospheric sudden warming in a transformed Eulerian mean formalism." J. Atmos. Sci. (1981) 10.1175/1520-0469(1981)038<0844:dsoaws>2.0.co;2

[38]

Pawson "The cold winters of the middle 1990s in the Northern Lower Stratosphere." J. Geophys. Res. (1999) 10.1029/1999jd900211

[39]

Pawson "The GCM-Reality Intercomparison Project for SPARC: Scientific issues and initial results." Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. (2000) 10.1175/1520-0477(2000)081<0781:tgipfs>2.3.co;2

[40]

Polvani "Tropospheric response to stratospheric perturbations in a relatively simple general circulation model." Geophys. Res. Lett. (2002) 10.1029/2001gl014284

[41]

Polvani "Upward wave activity flux as precursor to extreme stratospheric events and subsequent weather regimes." J. Climate (2004) 10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<3548:uwafaa>2.0.co;2

[42]

Quiroz "The warming of the stratosphere in February 1966 and the associated structure of the mesosphere." Mon. Wea. Rev. (1969) 10.1175/1520-0493(1969)097<0541:twotus>2.3.co;2

[43]

Quiroz "The stratospheric evolution of sudden warmings in 1969–74 determined from measured infrared radiation fields." J. Atmos. Sci. (1975) 10.1175/1520-0469(1975)032<0211:tseosw>2.0.co;2

[44]

Randel "Observations of a major stratospheric warming during December 1964." J. Atmos. Sci. (1987) 10.1175/1520-0469(1987)044<2179:ooamsw>2.0.co;2

[45]

Sassi "Effect of El Niño–Southern Oscillation on the dynamical, thermal, and chemical structure of the middle atmosphere." J. Geophys. Res. (2004) 10.1029/2003jd004434

[46]

Scherhag "Die explosionsartigen Stratosphärenerwärmungen des Spätwinters 1951–52." Ber. Dtsch. Wetterdienst (US Zone) (1952)

[47]

Scott "Enhancement of Rossby wave breaking by steep potential vorticity gradients in the winter stratosphere." J. Atmos. Sci. (2004) 10.1175/1520-0469(2004)061<0904:eorwbb>2.0.co;2

[48]

Sexton "The effect of stratospheric ozone depletion on the phase of the Antarctic Oscillation." Geophys. Res. Lett. (2001) 10.1029/2001gl013376

[49]

Shindell "Simulation of recent northern winter climate trends by greenhouse-gas forcing." Nature (1999) 10.1038/20905

[50]

Taguchi "Increased occurrence of stratospheric sudden warmings during El Niño as simulated by WACCM." J. Climate (2006) 10.1175/jcli3655.1

Showing 50 of 60 references

Cited By

930

Assessing Subseasonal Predictions of Stratosphere‐Troposphere Coupling of GraphCast

Zheng Wu · 2026

Journal of Geophysical Research: At...

Persistent Model Biases in the CMIP6 Representation of Stratospheric Polar Vortex Variability

Richard J. Hall, Daniel M. Mitchell · 2021

Journal of Geophysical Research: At...

The ERA5 global reanalysis: Preliminary extension to 1950

Bill Bell, Hans Hersbach · 2021

Quarterly Journal of the Royal Mete...

Market expectations of a warming climate

Wolfram Schlenker, Charles A. Taylor · 2021

Journal of Financial Economics

The Role of the Stratosphere in Subseasonal to Seasonal Prediction: 1. Predictability of the Stratosphere

Daniela I.V. Domeisen, Amy H. Butler · 2020

Journal of Geophysical Research: At...

Dependence of Sudden Stratospheric Warmings on Internal and External Drivers

A. Salminen, T. Asikainen · 2020

Geophysical Research Letters

The Impact of Strong El Niño and La Niña Events on the North Atlantic

S. C. Hardiman, N. J. Dunstone · 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

The Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model Version 6 (WACCM6)

A. Gettelman, M. J. Mills · 2019

Journal of Geophysical Research: At...

No robust evidence of future changes in major stratospheric sudden warmings: a multi-model assessment from CCMI

Blanca Ayarzagüena, Lorenzo M. Polvani · 2018

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

Effects of vertical resolution and nonorographic gravity wave drag on the simulated climate in the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5

Jadwiga H. Richter, Abraham Solomon · 2014

Journal of Advances in Modeling Ear...

On the lack of stratospheric dynamical variability in low‐top versions of the CMIP5 models

Andrew J. Charlton‐Perez, Mark P. Baldwin · 2013

Journal of Geophysical Research: At...

Influences of ENSO on Stratospheric Variability, and the Descent of Stratospheric Perturbations into the Lower Troposphere

Ngar-Cheung Lau · 2013

Journal of Climate

Why might stratospheric sudden warmings occur with similar frequency in El Niño and La Niña winters?

C. I. Garfinkel, A. H. Butler · 2012

Journal of Geophysical Research: Oc...

Tropospheric forcing of the stratosphere: A comparative study of the two different major stratospheric warmings in 2009 and 2010

Blanca Ayarzagüena, Ulrike Langematz · 2011

Journal of Geophysical Research: Oc...

Associations between stratospheric variability and tropospheric blocking

T. Woollings, A. Charlton‐Perez · 2010

Journal of Geophysical Research: Oc...

Stratospheric Communication of El Niño Teleconnections to European Winter

C. J. Bell, L. J. Gray · 2009

Journal of Climate

Metrics

930

Citations

60

References

Details

Published: Feb 01, 2007
Vol/Issue: 20(3)
Pages: 449-469

Authors

A

Andrew J. Charlton

Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, New York, New York

L

Lorenzo M. Polvani

Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, New York, New York

Cite This Article

Andrew J. Charlton, Lorenzo M. Polvani (2007). A New Look at Stratospheric Sudden Warmings. Part I: Climatology and Modeling Benchmarks. Journal of Climate, 20(3), 449-469. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli3996.1

A New Look at Stratospheric Sudden Warmings. Part I: Climatology and Modeling Benchmarks

You May Also Like