Stratospheric “wave hole” and interannual variations of the stratospheric circulation in late winter

Evgeny A. Jadin

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DOI: 10.4236/ns.2011.34033                

Abstract

Using the monthly mean NCEP dataset, the analysis of the upward and downward propagation of planetary waves was conducted by means of the three-dimensional Eliassen-Palm (EP) fluxes in the stratosphere. It is shown that the upward/downward EP fluxes are observed in different regions of the atmosphere: their well- known upward propagation takes place over North Eurasia, while the downward one revealed over North Atlantic and Canada in a region of the so-called stratospheric “wave hole”. Generation of the downward wave signal may be associated with a reflection of planetary waves in the upper stratosphere. It is shown that the downward EP flux responsible for the sink of eddy energy from the stratosphere to the troposphere is important in late winter (January-February) for an understanding of the stra- tosphere-troposphere coupling on the interannual and decadal timescales, in particular the 11-year solar cycle influence on the stratosphere. Results presented can explain the unusual behavior of a few winters in the Arctic stratosphere, which are outlier from the known Labitzke, van Loon’s correlations of stratospheric parameters with the 11-year solar cycle under separation in the west/east phases of the equatorial quasi-biennial oscillation.

Keywords

Stratosphere; Planetary Wave Fluxes

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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