Stratospheric water vapor feedback and its climate impacts in the coupled atmosphere–ocean Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry-Climate Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 1585-1595
Author(s):  
Feng Li ◽  
Paul Newman
Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 291
Author(s):  
Jinpeng Lu ◽  
Fei Xie ◽  
Hongying Tian ◽  
Jiali Luo

Stratospheric water vapor (SWV) changes play an important role in regulating global climate change, and its variations are controlled by tropopause temperature. This study estimates the impacts of tropopause layer ozone changes on tropopause temperature by radiative process and further influences on lower stratospheric water vapor (LSWV) using the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM4). It is found that a 10% depletion in global (mid-low and polar latitudes) tropopause layer ozone causes a significant cooling of the tropical cold-point tropopause with a maximum cooling of 0.3 K, and a corresponding reduction in LSWV with a maximum value of 0.06 ppmv. The depletion of tropopause layer ozone at mid-low latitudes results in cooling of the tropical cold-point tropopause by radiative processes and a corresponding LSWV reduction. However, the effect of polar tropopause layer ozone depletion on tropical cold-point tropopause temperature and LSWV is opposite to and weaker than the effect of tropopause layer ozone depletion at mid-low latitudes. Finally, the joint effect of tropopause layer ozone depletion (at mid-low and polar latitudes) causes a negative cold-point tropopause temperature and a decreased tropical LSWV. Conversely, the impact of a 10% increase in global tropopause layer ozone on LSWV is exactly the opposite of the impact of ozone depletion. After 2000, tropopause layer ozone decreased at mid-low latitudes and increased at high latitudes. These tropopause layer ozone changes at different latitudes cause joint cooling in the tropical cold-point tropopause and a reduction in LSWV. Clarifying the impacts of tropopause layer ozone changes on LSWV clearly is important for understanding and predicting SWV changes in the context of future global ozone recovery.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 929-943 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei Xie ◽  
Xin Zhou ◽  
Jianping Li ◽  
Quanliang Chen ◽  
Jiankai Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract Time-slice experiments with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, version 4 (WACCM4), and composite analysis with satellite observations are used to demonstrate that the Indo-Pacific warm pool (IPWP) can significantly affect lower-stratospheric water vapor. It is found that a warmer IPWP significantly dries the stratospheric water vapor by causing a broad cooling of the tropopause, and vice versa for a colder IPWP. Such imprints in tropopause temperature are driven by a combination of variations in the Brewer–Dobson circulation in the stratosphere and deep convection in the troposphere. Changes in deep convection associated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) reportedly have a small zonal mean effect on lower-stratospheric water vapor for strong zonally asymmetric effects on tropopause temperature. In contrast, IPWP events have zonally uniform imprints on tropopause temperature. This is because equatorial planetary waves forced by latent heat release from deep convection project strongly onto ENSO but weakly onto IPWP events.


2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenshou Tian ◽  
Martyn P. Chipperfield

Author(s):  
Steven Pawson ◽  
Richard S. Stolarski ◽  
Anne R. Douglass ◽  
Paul A. Newman ◽  
J. Eric Nielsen ◽  
...  

2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (10) ◽  
pp. 3278-3291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Oman ◽  
Darryn W. Waugh ◽  
Steven Pawson ◽  
Richard S. Stolarski ◽  
J. Eric Nielsen

Past and future climate simulations from the Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry–Climate Model (GEOS CCM), with specified boundary conditions for sea surface temperature, sea ice, and trace gas emissions, have been analyzed to assess trends and possible causes of changes in stratospheric water vapor. The simulated distribution of stratospheric water vapor in the 1990s compares well with observations. Changes in the cold point temperatures near the tropical tropopause can explain differences in entry stratospheric water vapor. The average saturation mixing ratio of a 20° latitude by 15° longitude region surrounding the minimum tropical saturation mixing ratio is shown to be a useful diagnostic for entry stratospheric water vapor and does an excellent job reconstructing the annual average entry stratospheric water vapor over the period 1950–2100. The simulated stratospheric water vapor increases over the 50 yr between 1950 and 2000, primarily because of changes in methane concentrations, offset by a slight decrease in tropical cold point temperatures. Stratospheric water vapor is predicted to continue to increase over the twenty-first century, with increasing methane concentrations causing the majority of the trend to midcentury. Small increases in cold point temperature cause increases in the entry water vapor throughout the twenty-first century. The increasing trend in future water vapor is tempered by a decreasing contribution of methane oxidation owing to cooling stratospheric temperatures and by increased tropical upwelling, leading to a near-zero trend for the last 30 yr of the twenty-first century.


2007 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 905-921 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Austin ◽  
John Wilson ◽  
Feng Li ◽  
Holger Vömel

Abstract Stratospheric water vapor concentrations and age of air are investigated in an ensemble of coupled chemistry-climate model simulations covering the period from 1960 to 2005. Observed greenhouse gas concentrations, halogen concentrations, aerosol amounts, and sea surface temperatures are all specified in the model as time-varying fields. The results are compared with two experiments (time-slice runs) with constant forcings for the years 1960 and 2000, in which the sea surface temperatures are set to the same climatological values, aerosol concentrations are fixed at background levels, while greenhouse gas and halogen concentrations are set to the values for the relevant years. The time-slice runs indicate an increase in stratospheric water vapor from 1960 to 2000 due primarily to methane oxidation. The age of air is found to be significantly less in the year 2000 run than the 1960 run. The transient runs from 1960 to 2005 indicate broadly similar results: an increase in water vapor and a decrease in age of air. However, the results do not change gradually. The age of air decreases significantly only after about 1975, corresponding to the period of ozone reduction. The age of air is related to tropical upwelling, which determines the transport of methane into the stratosphere. Oxidation of increased methane from enhanced tropical upwelling results in higher water vapor amounts. In the model simulations, the rate of increase of stratospheric water vapor during the period of enhanced upwelling is up to twice the long-term mean. The concentration of stratospheric water vapor also increases following volcanic eruptions during the simulations.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xun Wang ◽  
Andrew E. Dessler ◽  
Mark R. Schoeberl ◽  
Wandi Yu ◽  
Tao Wang

Abstract. We use a forward Lagrangian trajectory model to diagnose mechanisms that produce the tropical lower stratospheric (LS) water vapor seasonal cycle observed by the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and reproduced by the Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry Climate Model (GEOSCCM) in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL). We confirm in both the MLS and GEOSCCM that the seasonal cycle of water vapor is primarily determined by the seasonal cycle of TTL temperatures. However, we find that the seasonal cycle of temperature predicts a smaller seasonal cycle of LS water vapor between 10° N–40° N than observed by MLS. We show that including evaporation of convectively lofted ice in the trajectory model increases the simulated maximum value in the 10° N–40° N water vapor seasonal cycle by 1.9 ppmv (47 %) and increases the seasonal amplitude by 1.26 ppmv (123 %), which improves the prediction of LS water vapor annual cycle. We conclude that the moistening effect from convective ice evaporation in the TTL plays a key role regulating and maintaining the tropical LS water vapor seasonal cycle. Most of the convective moistening in the 10° N–40° N range comes from convective ice evaporation occurring at the same latitudes. A small contribution to the moistening comes from convective ice evaporation occurring between 10° S–10° N. Within 10° N–40° N, the Asian monsoon region is the most important region for convective ice evaporation and convective moistening during boreal summer and autumn.


2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (11) ◽  
pp. 4072-4085 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshio Kawatani ◽  
Jae N. Lee ◽  
Kevin Hamilton

Abstract By analyzing the almost-decade-long record of water vapor measurements from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instrument on the NASA Aura satellite and by detailed diagnostic analysis of the results from state-of-the art climate model simulations, this study confirmed the conceptual picture of the interannual variation in equatorial stratospheric water vapor discussed in earlier papers (e.g., Geller et al.). The interannual anomalies in water vapor are strongly related to the dynamical quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), and this study presents the first QBO composite of the time–height structure of the equatorial water vapor anomalies. The anomalies display upward propagation below about 10 hPa in a manner analogous to the annual “tape recorder” effect, but at higher levels they show clear downward propagation. This study examined these variations in the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC)-AGCM and in four models in phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) that simulate realistic QBOs. Diagnostic budget analysis of the MIROC-AGCM data and comparisons among the CMIP5 model results demonstrate (i) the importance of temperature anomalies at the tropopause induced by the QBO for lower-stratospheric water vapor variations and (ii) that upper-stratospheric water vapor anomalies are largely driven by advection of the mean vertical gradient of water content by the QBO interannual fluctuations in the vertical wind.


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