Articles | Volume 2, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-433-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-433-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
12 May 2021
Research article |
| 12 May 2021
| 12 May 2021
Subseasonal prediction of springtime Pacific–North American transport using upper-level wind forecasts
Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences,
University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA
NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA
Amy H. Butler
NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA
Melissa L. Breeden
NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA
Andrew O. Langford
NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA
George N. Kiladis
NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA
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Matthew S. Johnson, Alexei Rozanov, Mark Weber, Nora Mettig, John Sullivan, Michael J. Newchurch, Shi Kuang, Thierry Leblanc, Fernando Chouza, Timothy A. Berkoff, Guillaume Gronoff, Kevin B. Strawbridge, Raul J. Alvarez, Andrew O. Langford, Christoph J. Senff, Guillaume Kirgis, Brandi McCarty, and Larry Twigg
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Monitoring tropospheric ozone (O3), a harmful pollutant negatively impacting human health, is primarily done using ground-based measurements and ozonesondes. However, these observation types lack the coverage to fully understand tropospheric O3. Satellites can retrieve tropospheric ozone with near-daily global coverage; however, they are known to have biases and errors. This study uses ground-based lidars to validate multiple satellites' ability to observe tropospheric O3.
Melissa Leah Breeden, Andrew Hoell, John Robert Albers, and Kimberly Slinski
Weather Clim. Dynam., 4, 963–980, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-4-963-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-4-963-2023, 2023
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We compare the month-to-month evolution of daily precipitation over central southwest Asia (CSWA), a data-sparse, food-insecure area prone to drought and flooding. The seasonality of CSWA precipitation aligns with the seasonality of warm conveyor belts (WCBs), the warm, rapidly ascending airstreams associated with extratropical storms, most common from February–April. El Niño conditions are related to more WCBs and precipitation and La Niña conditions the opposite, except in January.
Ewa M. Bednarz, Amy H. Butler, Daniele Visioni, Yan Zhang, Ben Kravitz, and Douglas G. MacMartin
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 13665–13684, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13665-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13665-2023, 2023
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We use a state-of-the-art Earth system model and a set of stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) strategies to achieve the same level of global mean surface cooling through different combinations of location and/or timing of the injection. We demonstrate that the choice of SAI strategy can lead to contrasting impacts on stratospheric and tropospheric temperatures, circulation, and chemistry (including stratospheric ozone), thereby leading to different impacts on regional surface climate.
Dillon Elsbury, Amy H. Butler, John R. Albers, Melissa L. Breeden, and Andrew O'Neil Langford
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5101–5117, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5101-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5101-2023, 2023
Short summary
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One of the global hotspots where stratosphere-to-troposphere transport (STT) of ozone takes place is over Pacific North America (PNA). However, we do not know how or if STT over PNA will change in response to climate change. Using climate model experiments forced with
worst-casescenario Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 climate change, we find that changes in net chemical production and transport of ozone in the lower stratosphere increase STT of ozone over PNA in the future.
Melissa L. Breeden, John R. Albers, and Andrew Hoell
Weather Clim. Dynam., 3, 1183–1197, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-1183-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-1183-2022, 2022
Short summary
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We use a statistical dynamical model to generate precipitation forecasts for lead times of 2–6 weeks over southwest Asia, which are needed to support humanitarian food distribution. The model signal-to-noise ratio is used to identify a smaller subset of forecasts with particularly high skill, so-called subseasonal forecasts of opportunity (SFOs). Precipitation SFOs are often related to slowly evolving tropical phenomena, namely the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and Madden–Julian Oscillation.
John R. Albers, Amy H. Butler, Andrew O. Langford, Dillon Elsbury, and Melissa L. Breeden
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 13035–13048, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-13035-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-13035-2022, 2022
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Ozone transported from the stratosphere contributes to background ozone concentrations in the free troposphere and to surface ozone exceedance events that affect human health. The physical processes whereby the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) modulates North American stratosphere-to-troposphere ozone transport during spring are documented, and the usefulness of ENSO for predicting ozone events that may cause exceedances in surface air quality standards are assessed.
Zachary D. Lawrence, Marta Abalos, Blanca Ayarzagüena, David Barriopedro, Amy H. Butler, Natalia Calvo, Alvaro de la Cámara, Andrew Charlton-Perez, Daniela I. V. Domeisen, Etienne Dunn-Sigouin, Javier García-Serrano, Chaim I. Garfinkel, Neil P. Hindley, Liwei Jia, Martin Jucker, Alexey Y. Karpechko, Hera Kim, Andrea L. Lang, Simon H. Lee, Pu Lin, Marisol Osman, Froila M. Palmeiro, Judith Perlwitz, Inna Polichtchouk, Jadwiga H. Richter, Chen Schwartz, Seok-Woo Son, Irene Erner, Masakazu Taguchi, Nicholas L. Tyrrell, Corwin J. Wright, and Rachel W.-Y. Wu
Weather Clim. Dynam., 3, 977–1001, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-977-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-3-977-2022, 2022
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Forecast models that are used to predict weather often struggle to represent the Earth’s stratosphere. This may impact their ability to predict surface weather weeks in advance, on subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) timescales. We use data from many S2S forecast systems to characterize and compare the stratospheric biases present in such forecast models. These models have many similar stratospheric biases, but they tend to be worse in systems with low model tops located within the stratosphere.
Peter Hitchcock, Amy Butler, Andrew Charlton-Perez, Chaim I. Garfinkel, Tim Stockdale, James Anstey, Dann Mitchell, Daniela I. V. Domeisen, Tongwen Wu, Yixiong Lu, Daniele Mastrangelo, Piero Malguzzi, Hai Lin, Ryan Muncaster, Bill Merryfield, Michael Sigmond, Baoqiang Xiang, Liwei Jia, Yu-Kyung Hyun, Jiyoung Oh, Damien Specq, Isla R. Simpson, Jadwiga H. Richter, Cory Barton, Jeff Knight, Eun-Pa Lim, and Harry Hendon
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 5073–5092, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5073-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5073-2022, 2022
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This paper describes an experimental protocol focused on sudden stratospheric warmings to be carried out by subseasonal forecast modeling centers. These will allow for inter-model comparisons of these major disruptions to the stratospheric polar vortex and their impacts on the near-surface flow. The protocol will lead to new insights into the contribution of the stratosphere to subseasonal forecast skill and new approaches to the dynamical attribution of extreme events.
Shima Bahramvash Shams, Von P. Walden, James W. Hannigan, William J. Randel, Irina V. Petropavlovskikh, Amy H. Butler, and Alvaro de la Cámara
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 5435–5458, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-5435-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-5435-2022, 2022
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Large-scale atmospheric circulation has a strong influence on ozone in the Arctic, and certain anomalous dynamical events, such as sudden stratospheric warmings, cause dramatic alterations of the large-scale circulation. A reanalysis model is evaluated and then used to investigate the impact of sudden stratospheric warmings on mid-atmospheric ozone. Results show that the position of the cold jet stream over the Arctic before these events influences the variability of ozone.
Adam A. Scaife, Mark P. Baldwin, Amy H. Butler, Andrew J. Charlton-Perez, Daniela I. V. Domeisen, Chaim I. Garfinkel, Steven C. Hardiman, Peter Haynes, Alexey Yu Karpechko, Eun-Pa Lim, Shunsuke Noguchi, Judith Perlwitz, Lorenzo Polvani, Jadwiga H. Richter, John Scinocca, Michael Sigmond, Theodore G. Shepherd, Seok-Woo Son, and David W. J. Thompson
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 2601–2623, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2601-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2601-2022, 2022
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Great progress has been made in computer modelling and simulation of the whole climate system, including the stratosphere. Since the late 20th century we also gained a much clearer understanding of how the stratosphere interacts with the lower atmosphere. The latest generation of numerical prediction systems now explicitly represents the stratosphere and its interaction with surface climate, and here we review its role in long-range predictions and projections from weeks to decades ahead.
Andrew O. Langford, Christoph J. Senff, Raul J. Alvarez II, Ken C. Aikin, Sunil Baidar, Timothy A. Bonin, W. Alan Brewer, Jerome Brioude, Steven S. Brown, Joel D. Burley, Dani J. Caputi, Stephen A. Conley, Patrick D. Cullis, Zachary C. J. Decker, Stéphanie Evan, Guillaume Kirgis, Meiyun Lin, Mariusz Pagowski, Jeff Peischl, Irina Petropavlovskikh, R. Bradley Pierce, Thomas B. Ryerson, Scott P. Sandberg, Chance W. Sterling, Ann M. Weickmann, and Li Zhang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 1707–1737, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1707-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-1707-2022, 2022
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The Fires, Asian, and Stratospheric Transport–Las Vegas Ozone Study (FAST-LVOS) combined lidar, aircraft, and in situ measurements with global models to investigate the contributions of stratospheric intrusions, regional and Asian pollution, and wildfires to background ozone in the southwestern US during May and June 2017 and demonstrated that these processes contributed to background ozone levels that exceeded 70 % of the US National Ambient Air Quality Standard during the 6-week campaign.
Amy H. Butler and Daniela I. V. Domeisen
Weather Clim. Dynam., 2, 453–474, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-453-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-453-2021, 2021
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We classify by wave geometry the stratospheric polar vortex during the final warming that occurs every spring in both hemispheres due to a combination of radiative and dynamical processes. We show that the shape of the vortex, as well as the timing of the seasonal transition, is linked to total column ozone prior to and surface weather following the final warming. These results have implications for prediction and our understanding of stratosphere–troposphere coupling processes in springtime.
Antara Banerjee, Amy H. Butler, Lorenzo M. Polvani, Alan Robock, Isla R. Simpson, and Lantao Sun
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 6985–6997, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6985-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-6985-2021, 2021
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We find that simulated stratospheric sulfate geoengineering could lead to warmer Eurasian winters alongside a drier Mediterranean and wetting to the north. These effects occur due to the strengthening of the Northern Hemisphere stratospheric polar vortex, which shifts the North Atlantic Oscillation to a more positive phase. We find the effects in our simulations to be much more significant than the wintertime effects of large tropical volcanic eruptions which inject much less sulfate aerosol.
Melissa L. Breeden, Amy H. Butler, John R. Albers, Michael Sprenger, and Andrew O'Neil Langford
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 2781–2794, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-2781-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-2781-2021, 2021
Short summary
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Prior research has found a maximum in deep stratosphere-to-troposphere mass/ozone transport over the western United States in boreal spring, which can enhance surface ozone concentrations, reducing air quality. We find that the winter-to-summer evolution of the north Pacific jet increases the frequency of stratospheric intrusions that drive transport, helping explain the observed maximum. The El Niño–Southern Oscillation affects the timing of the spring jet transition and therefore transport.
Shi Kuang, Bo Wang, Michael J. Newchurch, Kevin Knupp, Paula Tucker, Edwin W. Eloranta, Joseph P. Garcia, Ilya Razenkov, John T. Sullivan, Timothy A. Berkoff, Guillaume Gronoff, Liqiao Lei, Christoph J. Senff, Andrew O. Langford, Thierry Leblanc, and Vijay Natraj
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 5277–5292, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5277-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5277-2020, 2020
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Ozone lidar is a state-of-the-art remote-sensing instrument to measure atmospheric ozone concentrations with high spatiotemporal resolution. In this study, we show that an ozone lidar can also provide reliable aerosol measurements through intercomparison with colocated aerosol lidar observations.
Li Zhang, Meiyun Lin, Andrew O. Langford, Larry W. Horowitz, Christoph J. Senff, Elizabeth Klovenski, Yuxuan Wang, Raul J. Alvarez II, Irina Petropavlovskikh, Patrick Cullis, Chance W. Sterling, Jeff Peischl, Thomas B. Ryerson, Steven S. Brown, Zachary C. J. Decker, Guillaume Kirgis, and Stephen Conley
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 10379–10400, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10379-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10379-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Measuring and quantifying the sources of elevated springtime ozone in the southwestern US is challenging but relevant to the implications for control policy. Here we use intensive field measurements and two global models to study ozone sources in the region. We find that ozone from the stratosphere, wildfires, and Asia is an important source of high-ozone events in the region. Our analysis also helps understand the uncertainties in ozone simulations with individual models.
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Short summary
Weather variability controls the transport of ozone from the stratosphere to the Earth’s surface and water vapor from oceanic source regions to continental land masses. Forecasting these types of transport has high societal value because of the negative impacts of ozone on human health and the role of water vapor in governing precipitation variability. We use upper-level wind forecasts to assess the potential for predicting ozone and water vapor transport 3–6 weeks ahead of time.
Weather variability controls the transport of ozone from the stratosphere to the Earth’s...
