How Can We Improve the Driving of the Quasi‐Biennial Oscillation in Climate Models?

Hertzog, Albert

doi:10.1029/2020jd033411

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…The vertical resolution in the lower stratosphere sufficient to realistically represent the mechanisms causing stratospheric dissipation of the waves remains unclear [126]. Analyses of novel observational datasets such as long-duration balloon flights [124,187] and lidar satellite wind observations [188] can help address these questions by providing better observational constraints on the waves driving the QBO. These constraints should narrow the range of physically defensible parameter values used in non-orographic gravity wave parametrizations.…”

Section: [H1] Summary and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Improved global observing systems are needed to verify these results and quantify global wave momentum fluxes, but vertical resolution limits satellite views of the important short vertical wavelength waves (< 4 km) [111][112][113]195]. New results from long-duration, super-pressure balloons overcome these limitations, shedding new light on the details of wave driving of the QBO at very short vertical wavelengths [124,187]. The QBO is enormously important for year-to-year variability of trace gases and aerosols in the tropical stratosphere, and also for their global distributions.…”

Section: Qbo Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Impacts, processes and projections of the quasi-biennial oscillation

Anstey

Osprey

Alexander

et al. 2022

Nat Rev Earth Environ

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In the tropical stratosphere, deep layers of eastward and westward winds encircle the globe and descend regularly from the upper stratosphere to the tropical tropopause. With a complete cycle typically lasting almost 2.5 years, this quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is arguably the most predictable mode of atmospheric variability not linked to the changing seasons. The QBO affects climate phenomena outside the tropical stratosphere, including ozone transport, the North Atlantic Oscillation and Madden-Julian Oscillation, and its high predictability could enable better forecasts of these phenomena if models can accurately represent the coupling processes. Climate and forecasting models are increasingly able to simulate stratospheric oscillations resembling the QBO, but exhibit common systematic errors such as weak amplitude in the lowermost tropical stratosphere. Uncertainties about the waves that force the oscillation, particularly the momentum fluxes from small-scale gravity waves excited by deep convection, make its simulation challenging. Improved representation of processes governing the QBO is expected to lead to better forecasts of the oscillation and its impacts, increased understanding of unusual events such as the two QBO disruptions observed since 2016, and more reliable future projections of QBO behaviour under climate change.

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Section: [H1] Summary and Future Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Qbo Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts, processes and projections of the quasi-biennial oscillation

Anstey

Osprey

Alexander

et al. 2022

Nat Rev Earth Environ

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“…Taguchi and Hartmann, 2006;Cohen and Jones, 2011), while other studies have stressed the importance of the state of the stratosphere. One possibility originally proposed by Palmer (1981a) to explain the occurrence of the 1979 SSW is the stratosphere is preconditioned to favour enhanced upward propagation of Rossby and gravity waves (Albers and Birner, 2014;Hitchcock and Haynes, 2016). An alternative possibility, first suggested by Plumb (1981), is that internal wave-mean-flow feedbacks within the stratosphere lead to a resonant growth of Rossby wave amplitudes (Matthewman and Esler, 2011).…”

Section: Sudden Stratospheric Warmingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The stratosphere: a review of the dynamics and variability

Butchart

2022

Weather Clim. Dynam.

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Abstract. Large-scale, intra-seasonal to inter-annual variability of the stratosphere is reviewed. Much of the variability is dynamical and induced by waves emanating from the troposphere. It is largely characterized by fluctuations in the strength of the polar vortex in winter and a quasi-biennial oscillation in the equatorial winds. Existing theories for the variability are generally formulated in terms of wave–mean-flow interactions, with refinements due, in part, to teleconnections between the tropics and extratropics. Climate and seasonal forecast models are able to reproduce much of the observed polar stratospheric variability and are increasingly successful in the tropics too. Compared to the troposphere the models display longer predictability timescales for variations within the stratosphere. Despite containing just ∼17 % of the atmosphere's mass, the stratosphere's variability exerts a powerful downward influence on the troposphere that can affect surface extremes. The stratosphere is therefore a useful source of additional skill for surface predictions. However, a complete dynamical explanation for the downward coupling is yet to be established.

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How Can We Improve the Driving of the Quasi‐Biennial Oscillation in Climate Models?

Cited by 2 publications

References 42 publications

Impacts, processes and projections of the quasi-biennial oscillation

Impacts, processes and projections of the quasi-biennial oscillation

The stratosphere: a review of the dynamics and variability

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