Influence of convection on stratospheric water vapor  in the North American monsoon region

Yu, Wandi; Dessler, A. E.; Park, Mi-Jeong; Jensen, E. J.

doi:10.5194/acp-20-12153-2020

Cited by 14 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…This study, however, does not attempt to quantify the effect of cross-tropopause convective transport and subsequent meridional advection through the NAMA in part because the GOES data used to construct the climatology is sufficient to capture seasonal trends and geographic distributions, but is not a complete budget. As such it is complementary to the work done using NEXRAD-derived GridRad data (Cooney et al, 2018;Yu et al, 2020), which provides a more complete record of cross-tropopause convection, but is limited in scope to the continental US. Future work seeking to quantify the total influence of all cross-tropopause convection occurring within the North American monsoon region on the lower stratosphere must consider the effects of the northward meridional transport of convective outflow by the NAMA.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying Outflow Regions of North American Monsoon Anticyclone‐Mediated Meridional Transport of Convectively Influenced Air Masses in the Lower Stratosphere

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying Outflow Regions of North American Monsoon Anticyclone‐Mediated Meridional Transport of Convectively Influenced Air Masses in the Lower Stratosphere

et al. 2021

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“…The evolution of global water vapor measured by SAGE III/ISS demonstrates transport processes associated with tape recorder development from the boreal summer into winter. The moist phase of the tape recorder is related to relatively warm tropical tropopause temperatures, in addition to contribution via transport from the boreal summer monsoons (e.g., Bannister et al, 2004;Nutzel et al, 2019;Yu et al, 2020). Clear evidence of this latter behavior is provided by the high vertical resolution SAGE III/ISS data during the summer in PARK ET AL.…”

Section: Near-global Space-time Variabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Near‐Global Variability of Stratospheric Water Vapor Observed by SAGE III/ISS

et al. 2021

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The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III instrument on the International Space Station (SAGE III/ISS) has been making high quality solar occultation measurements of stratospheric water vapor since June 2017. Here we evaluate the large‐scale geophysical variability of the SAGE III/ISS water vapor measurements for the first 3 years of observations (2017–2020) as part of data validation for retrieval version 5.1 (v5.1). Detailed comparisons of SAGE III/ISS v5.1 with the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) version 5 retrievals show overall excellent agreement in terms of seasonal mean structure and large‐scale variability. SAGE III/ISS data capture the well‐known seasonal variations in water vapor including the vertically propagating “tape recorder” in the tropics and lower stratospheric maxima linked to the NH summer monsoons. The high vertical resolution (∼2 km) measurements from SAGE III/ISS demonstrate contributions of the monsoons to the wet phase of “tape recorder” during the Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer. Interannual variations over the short data record are also consistent between SAGE III/ISS and MLS in the stratosphere between 16 and 30 km. We furthermore evaluate large‐scale variations in relative humidity (RH) derived from the high vertical resolution SAGE III/ISS water vapor measurements, highlighting the detailed seasonal behavior and links to thermal structure near the tropical tropopause. Spatial distributions of RH at the cold point tropopause (CPT) show a close link between high RH and the minimum CPT temperature in both the NH winter and summer, consistent with temperature control of water vapor near the tropopause.

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“…Mean brightness temperatures in the carbon dioxide 4.3 µm waveband have previously been used to detect stratospheric gravity wave signals from AIRS observations (e.g. Hoffmann and Alexander, 2010;Hoffmann et al, 2013;Yue et al, 2013;Hoffmann et al, 2018). In order to reduce noise and to improve the detection sensitivity, we averaged measurements of 42 AIRS channels from 2322.6 to 2345.9 and 2352.5 to 2366.9 cm −1 .…”

Section: Airs Observations Of Deep Convection and Gravity Wavesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical evidence for deep convection being a major source of stratospheric ice clouds over North America

et al. 2021

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Abstract. Ice clouds in the lowermost stratosphere affect stratospheric water vapour and the Earth's radiation budget. The knowledge of its occurrence and driving forces is limited. To assess the distribution and possible formation mechanisms of stratospheric ice clouds (SICs) over North America, we analysed SIC occurrence frequencies observed by the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) instrument during the years 2006 to 2018. Possible driving forces such as deep convection are assessed based on Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) observations during the same time. Results show that at nighttime, SICs are most frequently observed during the thunderstorm season over the Great Plains from May to August (MJJA) with a maximum occurrence frequency of 6.2 %. During the months from November to February (NDJF), the highest SICs occurrence frequencies are 5.5 % over the north-eastern Pacific and western Canada and 4.4 % over the western North Atlantic. Occurrence frequencies of deep convection from AIRS, which includes storm systems, fronts, mesoscale convective systems, and mesoscale convective complexes at midlatitude and high latitude, show similar hotspots like the SICs, with highest occurrence frequencies being observed over the Great Plains in MJJA (4.4 %) and over the north-eastern Pacific, western Canada, and the western North Atlantic in NDJF (∼ 2.5 %). Both, seasonal patterns and daily time series of SICs and deep convection show a high degree of spatial and temporal relation. Further analysis indicates that the maximum fraction of SICs related to deep convection is 74 % over the Great Plains in MJJA and about 50 % over the western North Atlantic, the north-eastern Pacific, and western Canada in NDJF. We conclude that, locally and regionally, deep convection is the leading factor related to the occurrence of SICs over North America. In this study, we also analysed the impact of gravity waves as another important factor related to the occurrence of SICs, as the Great Plains is a well-known hotspot for stratospheric gravity waves. In the cases where SICs are not directly linked to deep convection, we found that stratospheric gravity wave observations correlate with SICs with as much as 30 % of the cases over the Great Plains in MJJA, about 50 % over the north-eastern Pacific and western Canada, and up to 90 % over eastern Canada and the north-west Atlantic in NDJF. Our results provide a better understanding of the physical processes and climate variability related to SICs and will be of interest for modellers as SIC sources such as deep convection and gravity waves are small-scale processes that are difficult to represent in global general circulation models.

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Influence of convection on stratospheric water vapor in the North American monsoon region

Cited by 14 publications

References 42 publications

Identifying Outflow Regions of North American Monsoon Anticyclone‐Mediated Meridional Transport of Convectively Influenced Air Masses in the Lower Stratosphere

Identifying Outflow Regions of North American Monsoon Anticyclone‐Mediated Meridional Transport of Convectively Influenced Air Masses in the Lower Stratosphere

Near‐Global Variability of Stratospheric Water Vapor Observed by SAGE III/ISS

Empirical evidence for deep convection being a major source of stratospheric ice clouds over North America

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