A Case Study of the Northern Hemisphere Stratospheric Sudden Warming in the Winter of 2009

  • LI Yafei ,
  • HU Jinggao ,
  • REN Rongcai
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  • Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education(KLME)/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environment Change(ILCEC)/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters(CIC-FEMD), Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, Jiangsu, China;State Key Laboratory of Numerical Modeling for Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics(LASG), institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China;University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Received date: 2016-06-01

  Online published: 2017-12-28

Abstract

Based on 1979-2015 NECP/NCAR daily reanalysis data, this paper analyzed the evolution of circulation and the dynamical characteristics during the major Stratospheric Sudden Warming (SSW) in the winter of 2009, and revealed the precursory signal in troposphere before the occurrence of this SSW. The results showed that the stratospheric polar night jet quickly weakened in mid-January, meanwhile the polar stratospheric temperature rapidly increased. On 24 January, the 10 hPa zonal mean zonal wind averaged over 60°N-70°N reversed from westerly to easterly wind, indicating the onset of this major SSW. The easterly wind lasted until the end of February. By diagnosing planetary wave anomalies, it is found that the extratropical planetary wavenumber 2 component of geopotential height anomalies on 10 hPa rapidly increased from 10 days before the SSW onset. But the planetary wavenumber 1 component reduced in the corresponding period. The magnitude of the increase of planetary wavenumber 2 overwhelms the decrease of the planetary wavenumber 1. The vertical component of Eliassen-Palm (EP) flux anomalies by planetary wavenumber 2 reached the maximum value 5 days before the SSW onset. All these indicate that this SSW is a typical vortex splitting event driven by planetary wavenumber 2. This major SSW caused the strongest planetary wavenumber 2 EP flux anomalies in the winter of 2009 during the period 1979-2015. Further analyses on geopotential height anomalies on 500 hPa showed that the positive anomalies that located in the northeastern Pacific and western North America were highly in phase with the Alaska ridge of the climatological stationary waves before SSW onset. This distribution strongly enhanced the propagation of planetary wavenumber 2 from extratropical troposphere to stratosphere and thus acted as the strongest tropospheric precursory signal for the occurrence of this SSW. It is noted that although there are some other anomalous height centers that interfere with climatological stationary waves, they do not have significantly positive impacts on the SSW occurrence. For example, the negative height center that locates in the north Atlantic and eastern North America is in phase with the climatological trough over eastern North America and out of phase with the climatological ridge over Western Europe. It enhances the planetary wavenumber 2 but weakens planetary wavenumber 1 simultaneously. The net effect of this anomalous center on the stratospheric planetary wave activities is less obvious than that of the positive anomalies that locate in the northeastern Pacific and western North America.

Cite this article

LI Yafei , HU Jinggao , REN Rongcai . A Case Study of the Northern Hemisphere Stratospheric Sudden Warming in the Winter of 2009[J]. Plateau Meteorology, 2017 , 36(6) : 1576 -1586 . DOI: 10.7522/j.issn.1000-0534.2017.00003

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