The Response to Stratospheric Forcing and Its Dependence on the State of the Troposphere

In simple GCMs, the time scale associated with the persistence of one particular phase of the model’s leading mode of variability can often be unrealistically large. In a particularly extreme example, the time scale in the Polvani–Kushner model is about an order of magnitude larger than the observed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the atmospheric sciences 2009-07, Vol.66 (7), p.2107-2115
Main Authors: CHAN, Cegeon J, ALAN PLUMB, R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmosphere
Atmospheric models
Changes
Climate
Earth, ocean, space
Equilibrium
Exact sciences and technology
Experiments
External geophysics
General circulation models
Meteorology
Modelling
Physics of the high neutral atmosphere
Southern Hemisphere
Spatial distribution
Stratosphere
Summer
Temperature
Temperature distribution
Temperature profile
Temperature profiles
Time
Topography
Troposphere
Variability
Vortices
Wind
Winter
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Summary:In simple GCMs, the time scale associated with the persistence of one particular phase of the model’s leading mode of variability can often be unrealistically large. In a particularly extreme example, the time scale in the Polvani–Kushner model is about an order of magnitude larger than the observed atmosphere. From the fluctuation–dissipation theorem, one implication of these simple models is that responses are exaggerated, since such setups are overly sensitive to any external forcing. Although the model’s equilibrium temperature is set up to represent perpetual Southern Hemisphere winter solstice, it is found that the tropospheric eddy-driven jet has a preference for two distinct regions: the subtropics and midlatitudes. Because of this bimodality, the jet persists in one region for thousands of days before “switching” to another. As a result, the time scale associated with the intrinsic variability is unrealistic. In this paper, the authors systematically vary the model’s tropospheric equilibrium temperature profile, one configuration being identical to that of Polvani and Kushner. Modest changes to the tropospheric state to either side of the parameter space removed the bimodality in the zonal-mean zonal jet’s spatial distribution and significantly reduced the time scale associated with the model’s internal mode. Consequently, the tropospheric response to the same stratospheric forcing is significantly weaker than in the Polvani and Kushner case.
ISSN:0022-4928
1520-0469
DOI:10.1175/2009jas2937.1