scholarly journals Cold trap dehydration in the Tropical Tropopause Layer characterized by SOWER chilled-mirror hygrometer network data in the Tropical Pacific

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 25833-25885 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Hasebe ◽  
Y. Inai ◽  
M. Shiotani ◽  
M. Fujiwara ◽  
H. Vömel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ice Nucleation ◽  
Tropical Pacific ◽  
Cold Trap ◽  
Mixing Ratio ◽  
Back Trajectories ◽  
Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Scatter Plots ◽  
Cold Point ◽  
The Tropical Pacific

Abstract. A network of balloon-born radiosonde observations employing chilled-mirror hygrometers for water and electrochemical concentration cells for ozone has been operated since late 1990s in the Tropical Pacific trying to capture the progress of dehydration for the air parcels advected horizontally in the Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL). The analyses of this dataset are made on isentropes taking advantage of the conservative properties of tracers in adiabatic motion. The existence of ice particles is diagnosed by lidars simultaneously operated with sonde flights. Characteristics of the TTL dehydration are presented on the basis of individual soundings and statistical features. Supersaturations close to 80% in the relative humidity with respect to ice (RHice) have been observed in subvisible cirrus clouds located near the cold point tropopause at extremely low temperatures around 180 K. Further observational evidence is needed to confirm the credibility of such high values of RHice. The progress of TTL dehydration is reflected in isentropic scatter plots between the sonde-observed mixing ratio (OMR) and the minimum saturation mixing ratio (SMRmin) along the back trajectories associated with the observed air mass. The supersaturation exceeding the critical value of the homogeneous ice nucleation (OMR > 1.6 × SMRmin) is frequently observed on 360 and 365 K surfaces indicating that the cold trap dehydration is under progress in the TTL. The near correspondence between the two (OMR ~ SMRmin) on 380 K on the other hand implies that this surface is not significantly cold for the advected air parcels to be dehydrated. Above 380 K, the cold trap dehydration would scarcely function while some moistening in turn occurs before the air parcels reach the lowermost stratosphere at around 400 K where OMR is generally smaller than SMRmin.

scholarly journals Cold trap dehydration in the Tropical Tropopause Layer characterised by SOWER chilled-mirror hygrometer network data in the Tropical Pacific

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4393-4411 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Hasebe ◽  
Y. Inai ◽  
M. Shiotani ◽  
M. Fujiwara ◽  
H. Vömel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ice Nucleation ◽  
Tropical Pacific ◽  
Cold Trap ◽  
Mixing Ratio ◽  
Back Trajectories ◽  
Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Scatter Plots ◽  
Cold Point ◽  
The Tropical Pacific

Abstract. A network of balloon-borne radiosonde observations employing chilled-mirror hygrometers for water and electrochemical concentration cells for ozone has been operated since the late 1990s in the Tropical Pacific to capture the evolution of dehydration of air parcels advected quasi-horizontally in the Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL). The analysis of this dataset is made on isentropes taking advantage of the conservative properties of tracers moving adiabatically. The existence of ice particles is diagnosed by lidars simultaneously operated with sonde flights. Characteristics of the TTL dehydration are presented on the basis of individual soundings and statistical features. Supersaturations close to 80% in relative humidity with respect to ice (RHice) have been observed in subvisible cirrus clouds located near the cold point tropopause at extremely low temperatures around 180 K. Although further observational evidence is needed to confirm the credibility of such high values of RHice, the evolution of TTL dehydration is evident from the data in isentropic scatter plots between the sonde-observed mixing ratio (OMR) and the minimum saturation mixing ratio (SMRmin) along the back trajectories associated with the observed air mass. Supersaturation exceeding the critical value of homogeneous ice nucleation (OMR > 1.6 × SMRmin) is frequently observed on the 360 and 365 K surfaces indicating that cold trap dehydration is in progress in the TTL. The near correspondence between the two (OMR ~ SMRmin) at 380 K on the other hand implies that this surface is not sufficiently cold for the advected air parcels to be dehydrated. Above 380 K, cold trap dehydration would scarcely function while some moistening occurs before the air parcels reach the lowermost stratosphere at around 400 K where OMR is generally smaller than SMRmin.

scholarly journals The roles of convection, extratropical mixing, and in-situ freeze-drying in the Tropical Tropopause Layer

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (20) ◽  
pp. 6051-6067 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. G. Read ◽  
M. J. Schwartz ◽  
A. Lambert ◽  
H. Su ◽  
N. J. Livesey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Quantitative Agreement ◽  
Radiative Heating ◽  
Cold Trap ◽  
Neutral Buoyancy ◽  
Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽  
Convective Mixing ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Trace Species ◽  
Cold Point

Abstract. Mechanisms for transporting and dehydrating air across the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) are investigated with a conceptual two dimensional (2-D) model. The 2-D TTL model combines the Holton and Gettelman cold trap dehydration mechanism (Holton and Gettelman, 2001) with the two column convection model of Folkins and Martin (2005). We investigate 3 possible transport scenarios through the TTL: 1) slow uniform ascent across the level of zero radiative heating without direct convective mixing, 2) convective mixing of H2O vapor at 100% relative humidity with respect to ice (RHi) with no ice retention, and 3) convective mixing of extremely subsaturated air (100% RHi following the moist adiabatic temperature above the level of neutral buoyancy) with sufficient ice retention such that total H2O is 100%RHi. The three mechanisms produce similar seasonal cycles for H2O that are in good quantitative agreement with the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) measurements. We use Aura MLS measurement of CO and Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment-Fourier Transform Spectrometer measurement of HDO to distinguish among the transport mechanisms. Model comparisons with the observations support the view that H2O is predominantly controlled by regions having the lowest cold point tropopause temperature but the trace species CO and HDO support the convective mixing of dry air and lofted ice. The model provides some insight into the processes affecting the long term trends observed in stratospheric H2O.

scholarly journals Diagnosis of processes controlling water vapour in the tropical tropopause layer by a Lagrangian cirrus model

2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 5515-5552 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Ren ◽  
A. R. MacKenzie ◽  
C. Schiller ◽  
G. Shur ◽  
V. Yushkov
Keyword(s):  
Water Vapour ◽  
Specific Humidity ◽  
Mixing Ratio ◽  
Total Water ◽  
Water Mixing ◽  
Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽  
Mixing Ratios ◽  
Aircraft Flight ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Ecmwf Model

Abstract. We have developed a Lagrangian air-parcel cirrus model (LACM), to diagnose the processes controlling water in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL). LACM applies parameterised microphysics to air parcel trajectories. The parameterisation includes the homogeneous freezing of aerosol droplets, the growth/sublimation of ice particles, and sedimentation of ice particles, so capturing the main dehydration mechanism for air in the TTL. Rehydration is also considered by resetting the water vapour mixing ratio in an air parcel to the value at the point in the 4-D analysis/forecast data used to generate the trajectories, but only when certain conditions, indicative of convection, are satisfied. These conditions are imposed to confine what processes contribute to rehydration. The conditions act to restrict rehydration of the Lagrangian air parcels to regions where convective transport of water vapour from below is significant, at least to the extent that the analysis/forecast captures this process. The inclusion of hydration and dehydration mechanisms in LACM results in total water fields near tropical convection that have more of the "stripey" character of satellite observations of high cloud, than do either the ECMWF analysis or trajectories without microphysics. The mixing ratios of total water in the TTL, measured by a high-altitude aircraft over Brazil (during the TROCCINOX campaign), have been reconstructed by LACM using trajectories generated from ECMWF analysis. Two other Lagrangian reconstructions are also tested: linear interpolation of ECMWF analysed specific humidity onto the aircraft flight track, and instantaneous dehydration to the saturation vapour pressure over ice along trajectories. The reconstructed total water mixing ratios along aircraft flight tracks are compared with observations from the FISH total water hygrometer. Process-oriented analysis shows that modelled cirrus cloud events are responsible for dehydrating the air parcels coming from lower levels, resulting in total water mixing ratios as low as 2 μmol/mol. Without adding water back to some of the trajectories, the LACM and instantaneous-dehydration reconstructions have a dry bias. The interpolated-ECMWF reconstruction does not suffer this dry bias, because convection in the ECMWF model moistens air parcels dramatically, by pumping moist air upwards. This indicates that the ECMWF model captures the gross features of the rehydration of air in the TTL by convection. Overall, the ECMWF models captures well the exponential decrease in total water mixing ratio with height above 250 hPa, so that all the reconstruction techniques capture more than 75% of the variance in the measured total water mixing ratios over the depth of the TTL. We have therefore developed a simple method for re-setting the total water in LACM using the ECMWF-analysed specific humidity in regions where the model predicts convection. By picking up the main contributing processes to dehydration and rehydration in the TTL, LACM reconstructs total water mixing ratios along aircraft flight tracks at the top of the TTL, close to the cold point, that are always in substantially better agreement with observations than instantaneous-dehydration reconstructions, and better than the ECMWF analysis for regions of high relative humidity and cloud.

scholarly journals Transport timescales and tracer properties in the extratropical UTLS

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 12953-12991 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Hoor ◽  
H. Wernli ◽  
M. I. Hegglin
Keyword(s):  
Transit Time ◽  
Chemical Structure ◽  
Comprehensive Evaluation ◽  
Mixing Ratio ◽  
Backward Trajectories ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Northern Winter ◽  
Cold Point ◽  
The Tropics

Abstract. A comprehensive evaluation of seasonal backward trajectories initialized in the Northern Hemisphere lowermost stratosphere (LMS) has been performed to investigate the origin of air parcels and the main mechanisms determining characteristic structures in H2O and CO within the LMS. In particular we explain the fundamental role of the transit time since last tropopause crossing (tTST) for the chemical structure of the LMS as well as the feature of the extra-tropical tropopause transition layer (ExTL) as identified from CO profiles. The distribution of H2O in the background LMS above Θ=320 K and 340 K in northern winter and summer, respectively, is found to be governed mainly by the saturation mixing ratio, which in turn is determined by the Lagrangian Cold Point (LCP) encountered by each trajectory. Most of the backward trajectories from this region in the LMS experienced their LCP in the tropics and sub-tropics. The transit time since crossing the tropopause from the troposphere to the stratosphere (tTST) is independent of the H2O value of the air parcel. TST often occurs 20 days after trajectories have encountered their LCP. CO, on the other hand, depends strongly on tTST due to its finite lifetime. The ExTL as identified from CO measurements is then explained as a layer of air just above the tropopause, which on average encountered TST fairly recently.

scholarly journals Ultrathin Tropical Tropopause Clouds (UTTCs): I. Cloud morphology and occurrence

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1083-1091 ◽  
Author(s):  
Th. Peter ◽  
B. P. Luo ◽  
M. Wirth ◽  
C. Kiemle ◽  
H. Flentje ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gas Phase ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Lower Stratosphere ◽  
Western Indian Ocean ◽  
Ice Crystals ◽  
Mixing Ratio ◽  
Efficient Point ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Cold Point

Abstract. Subvisible cirrus clouds (SVCs) may contribute to dehydration close to the tropical tropopause. The higher and colder SVCs and the larger their ice crystals, the more likely they represent the last efficient point of contact of the gas phase with the ice phase and, hence, the last dehydrating step, before the air enters the stratosphere. The first simultaneous in situ and remote sensing measurements of SVCs were taken during the APE-THESEO campaign in the western Indian ocean in February/March 1999. The observed clouds, termed Ultrathin Tropical Tropopause Clouds (UTTCs), belong to the geometrically and optically thinnest large-scale clouds in the Earth's atmosphere. Individual UTTCs may exist for many hours as an only 200--300 m thick cloud layer just a few hundred meters below the tropical cold point tropopause, covering up to 105 km2. With temperatures as low as 181 K these clouds are prime representatives for defining the water mixing ratio of air entering the lower stratosphere.

scholarly journals Effect of tropical cyclones on the tropical tropopause parameters observed using COSMIC GPS RO data

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (18) ◽  
pp. 10239-10249 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Ravindra Babu ◽  
M. Venkat Ratnam ◽  
G. Basha ◽  
B. V. Krishnamurthy ◽  
B. Venkateswararao
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Cyclones ◽  
Lower Stratosphere ◽  
Thermal Structure ◽  
Radial Distance ◽  
Lapse Rate ◽  
Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽  
Water Vapour Transport ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
High Vertical Resolution ◽  
Cold Point

Abstract. Tropical cyclones (TCs) are deep convective synoptic-scale systems that play an important role in modifying the thermal structure, tropical tropopause parameters and hence also modify stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE) processes. In the present study, high vertical resolution and high accuracy measurements from COSMIC Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) measurements are used to investigate and quantify the effect of tropical cyclones that occurred over Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea in the last decade on the tropical tropopause parameters. The tropopause parameters include cold-point tropopause altitude (CPH) and temperature (CPT), lapse-rate tropopause altitude (LRH) and temperature (LRT) and the thickness of the tropical tropopause layer (TTL), that is defined as the layer between convective outflow level (COH) and CPH, obtained from GPS RO data. From all the TC events, we generate the mean cyclone-centred composite structure for the tropopause parameters and removed it from the climatological mean obtained from averaging the GPS RO data from 2002 to 2013. Since the TCs include eye, eye walls and deep convective bands, we obtained the tropopause parameters based on radial distance from the cyclone eye. In general, decrease in the CPH in the eye is noticed as expected. However, as the distance from the cyclone eye increases by 300, 400, and 500 km, an enhancement in CPH (CPT) and LRH (LRT) is observed. Lowering of CPH (0.6 km) and LRH (0.4 km) values with coldest CPT and LRT (2–3 K) within a 500 km radius of the TC centre is noticed. Higher (2 km) COH leading to the lowering of TTL thickness (2–3 km) is clearly observed. There are multiple tropopause structures in the profiles of temperature obtained within 100 km from the centre of the TC. These changes in the tropopause parameters are expected to influence the water vapour transport from the troposphere to the lower stratosphere, and ozone from the lower stratosphere to the upper troposphere, hence influencing STE processes.

Moisture fluxes in the tropics dominated by deep convection up to near tropical tropopause levels

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maximilien Bolot ◽  
Stephan Fueglistaler
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Deep Convection ◽  
Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Convective Scale ◽  
Moisture Fluxes ◽  
Global Impacts ◽  
Observational Estimate ◽  
Cold Point ◽  
Open Question

<p>The role played by tropical storms in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL), the transitional layer regulating the flux into the stratosphere of trace gases affecting radiation and the ozone layer, has been a long-standing open question. Progress has been slow because of computational limitations and challenging conditions for measurements and most numerical studies have used simulations over limited domains whose results must be upscaled to the tropical surface to infer global impacts. We compute the first global observational estimate of the convective ice flux at near tropical tropopause levels by using spaceborne lidar measurements from CALIOP. The calculation uses a method to convert from lidar extinction to sedimenting ice flux and uses error propagation to provide margins of uncertainty. We show that, at any given level in the TTL, the sedimenting ice flux exceeds the inflow of vapor computed from ERA5 reanalysis, revealing additional ice transport and allowing to deduce the advective ice flux as a function of altitude. The contribution to this flux of large-scale motions (resolved by ERA5) is computed and the residual is hypothesized to represent the flux of ice on the convective scale. Results show without ambiguity that the upward ice flux in deep convection dominates moisture transport up to close to the level of the cold point tropopause.</p>

scholarly journals Representation of Vertical Atmospheric Structures by Radio Occultation Observations in the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere: Comparison to High-Resolution Radiosonde Profiles

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhen Zeng ◽  
Sergey Sokolovskiy ◽  
William S. Schreiner ◽  
Doug Hunt
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Radio Occultation ◽  
Lower Stratosphere ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Low Latitudes ◽  
Observational Noise ◽  
Horizontal Inhomogeneity ◽  
Cold Point

AbstractGlobal positioning system (GPS) radio occultation (RO) is capable of retrieving vertical profiles of atmospheric parameters with high resolution (<100 m), which can be achieved in spherically symmetric atmosphere. Horizontal inhomogeneity of real atmosphere results in representativeness errors of retrieved profiles. In most cases these errors increase with a decrease of vertical scales of atmospheric structures and may not allow one to fully utilize the physical resolution of RO. Also, GPS RO–retrieved profiles are affected by observational noise of different types, which, in turn, affect the representation of small-scale atmospheric structures. This study investigates the effective resolution and optimal smoothing of GPS RO–retrieved temperature profiles using high-pass filtering and cross correlation with collocated high-resolution radiosondes. The effective resolution is a trade-off between representation of real atmospheric structures and suppression of observational noise, which varies for different latitudes (15°S–75°N) and altitudes (10–27 km). Our results indicate that at low latitudes the effective vertical resolution is about 0.2 km near the tropical tropopause layer and about 0.5 km in the lower stratosphere. The best resolution of 0.1 km is at the cold-point tropical tropopause. The effective resolutions at the midlatitudes are slightly worse than at low latitudes, varying from ~0.2 to 0.6 km. At high latitudes, the effective resolutions change notably with altitude from ~0.2 km at 10–15 km to ~1.4 km at 22–27 km. Our results suggest that the atmospheric inhomogeneity plays an important role in the representation of the vertical atmospheric structures by RO measurements.

scholarly journals The radiative role of ozone and water vapour in the temperature annual cycle in the tropical tropopause layer

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Ming ◽  
Amanda C. Maycock ◽  
Peter Hitchcock ◽  
Peter Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Water Vapour ◽  
Annual Cycle ◽  
Temperature Response ◽  
Radiative Heating ◽  
Latitudinal Gradients ◽  
Peak Amplitude ◽  
Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽  
Enhanced Absorption ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Cold Point

Abstract. The prominent annual cycle in temperatures (with maximum peak to peak amplitude of ~ 8 K around 70 hPa and ~ 6 K at 90 hPa) is a key feature of the tropical tropopause layer (TTL). There is also a strong annual cycle observed in both ozone and water vapour in the TTL, with the latter understood as a consequence of the temperature annual cycle. The radiative contributions of the annual cycle in ozone and water vapour to the temperature annual cycle are studied, first with a seasonally evolving fixed dynamical heating calculation (SEFDH) where the dynamical heating is assumed to be unaffected by the radiative heating. In this framework, the variations in ozone and water vapour derived from satellite data lead to variations in temperature that are respectively in phase and out of phase with the observed annual cycle. The ozone contribution is at the upper range of previous calculations. This difference in phasing can be understood from the fact that an increase in water vapour cools the TTL, predominantly through enhanced local emission, whereas an increase in ozone warms the TTL, mostly through enhanced absorption of upwelling longwave radiation from the troposphere. The relative phasing of the water vapour and ozone effects on temperature is further influenced by the fact that for water vapour there is a strong non-local effect on temperatures from variations in concentrations occurring in lower layers of the TTL. In contrast, for ozone it is the local variations in concentration that have the strongest impact on local temperature variations. The factors that determine the vertical structure of the annual cycle in temperature are also examined. Radiative damping time scales are shown to maximize over a broad layer centred on the cold point. Non-radiative processes in the upper troposphere are inferred to impose a strong constraint on temperature perturbations below 130 hPa. These effects, combined with the annual cycles in dynamical and radiative heating, which both peak above the cold point, result in a maximum amplitude of temperature response that is relatively localized around 70 hPa. Finally, the SEFDH assumption is relaxed by considering the temperature responses to ozone and water vapour variations in a zonally symmetric dynamical model. While the magnitude of the tropical averaged temperature annual cycle in this framework is found to be consistent with the SEFDH results, the effects of the dynamical adjustment act to reduce the strong latitudinal gradients and inter-hemispheric asymmetry in the temperature response. This results in a temperature response that shows a considerably smoother structure than inferred from the SEFDH model. Whilst precise numerical values are likely to be sensitive to changes in the details of radiation code and of ozone and water vapour concentrations, the net contribution to the annual cycle in temperature from both ozone and water vapour averaged between 20° N–S, calculated in this work, is substantial and around 35 % of the observed peak to peak amplitude at both 70 hPa and 90 hPa.

scholarly journals Tropical tropopause ice clouds: a dynamic approach to the mystery of low crystal numbers

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 9801-9818 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Spichtinger ◽  
M. Krämer
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Waves ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Ice Nucleation ◽  
Ice Formation ◽  
Ice Crystal ◽  
Ice Clouds ◽  
Tropical Tropopause Layer ◽  
Tropical Tropopause ◽  
Homogeneous Freezing

Abstract. The occurrence of high, persistent ice supersaturation inside and outside cold cirrus in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) remains an enigma that is intensely debated as the "ice supersaturation puzzle". However, it was recently confirmed that observed supersaturations are consistent with very low ice crystal concentrations, which is incompatible with the idea that homogeneous freezing is the major method of ice formation in the TTL. Thus, the tropical tropopause "ice supersaturation puzzle" has become an "ice nucleation puzzle". To explain the low ice crystal concentrations, a number of mainly heterogeneous freezing methods have been proposed. Here, we reproduce in situ measurements of frequencies of occurrence of ice crystal concentrations by extensive model simulations, driven by the special dynamic conditions in the TTL, namely the superposition of slow large-scale updraughts with high-frequency short waves. From the simulations, it follows that the full range of observed ice crystal concentrations can be explained when the model results are composed from scenarios with consecutive heterogeneous and homogeneous ice formation and scenarios with pure homogeneous ice formation occurring in very slow (< 1 cm s−1) and faster (> 1 cm s−1) large-scale updraughts, respectively. This statistical analysis shows that about 80% of TTL cirrus can be explained by "classical" homogeneous ice nucleation, while the remaining 20% stem from heterogeneous and homogeneous freezing occurring within the same environment. The mechanism limiting ice crystal production via homogeneous freezing in an environment full of gravity waves is the shortness of the gravity waves, which stalls freezing events before a higher ice crystal concentration can be formed.

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