Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Zonal Asymmetry of the Stratopause in the 2019/2020 Arctic Winter

Yu Shi
ORCID logo ,
Oleksandr Evtushevsky
,
Gennadi Milinevsky
* ,
Andrew Klekociuk
,
Wei Han
,
Oksana Ivaniha
,
Yulia Andrienko
,
Valery Shulga
* ORCID logo ,
Chenning Zhang
Version 1 : Received: 21 February 2022 / Approved: 22 February 2022 / Online: 22 February 2022 (04:07:39 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Shi, Y.; Evtushevsky, O.; Milinevsky, G.; Klekociuk, A.; Han, W.; Ivaniha, O.; Andrienko, Y.; Shulga, V.; Zhang, C. Zonal Asymmetry of the Stratopause in the 2019/2020 Arctic Winter. Remote Sens. 2022, 14, 1496. Shi, Y.; Evtushevsky, O.; Milinevsky, G.; Klekociuk, A.; Han, W.; Ivaniha, O.; Andrienko, Y.; Shulga, V.; Zhang, C. Zonal Asymmetry of the Stratopause in the 2019/2020 Arctic Winter. Remote Sens. 2022, 14, 1496.

Abstract

The aim of this work is to study the zonally asymmetric stratopause that occurred in the Arctic winter of 2019/2020, when the polar vortex was particularly strong and there was no sudden stratospheric warming. Aura Microwave Limb Sounder temperature data were used to analyze the evolution of the stratopause with a particular focus on its zonally asymmetric wave 1 pattern. There was a rapid descent of the stratopause height below 50 km in the anticyclone region in mid-December 2019. The descended stratopause persisted until mid-January 2020 and was accompanied by a slow descent of the higher stratopause in the vortex region. The results show that the stratopause in this event was inclined and lowered from the mesosphere in the polar vortex to the stratosphere in the anticyclone. It was found that the vertical amplification of wave 1 between 50 km and 60 km closely coincides in time with the rapid stratopause descent in the anticyclone. Overall, the behavior contrasts with the situation during sudden stratospheric warmings when the stratopause reforms at higher altitudes following wave amplification events. We link the mechanism responsible for coupling between the vertical wave 1 amplification and this form of zonally asymmetric stratopause descent to the unusual disruption of the quasi-biennial oscillation that occurred in late 2019.

Keywords

stratopause; mesosphere; sudden stratospheric warming; polar vortex; zonal wind; quasi-biennial oscillation; planetary wave; stratosphere

Subject

Environmental and Earth Sciences, Atmospheric Science and Meteorology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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