Climatology and Variability of UTLS Jets in Reanalyses: A Three-Dimensional Perspective of Changes in Upper Tropospheric Jet and Tropopause Characteristics
Wednesday, July 29, 2015: 10:10 AM
Gloria L Manney1,2, Michaela Imelda Hegglin3, Zachary D Lawrence2, Michelle L Santee4, Michael J Schwartz4, Luis F Millan Valle4, Mark A Olsen5 and Steven Pawson6, (1)NorthWest Research Associates, Inc, Socorro, NM, United States, (2)New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM, United States, (3)Unversity of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom, (4)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, (5)NASA GSFC/MSU GESTAR, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (6)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, Greenbelt, MD, United States
Abstract:
We have developed methods for comprehensive characterization of upper tropospheric/lower stratospheric (UTLS) jets that have been used with the MERRA reanalysis to construct a climatology of UT jets and their relationships to the stratospheric subvortex. This framework has also been used to evaluate trace gas distributions from satellite measurements in relation to double tropopauses. We are extending this work to compare the representation of UTLS jets and the tropopause in MERRA with that in other widely used reanalyses, in addition to exploring interannual variability and trends in the jets and tropopause. In this talk, we focus on variability and trends in the position, strength, occurrence frequency, and other characteristics of UT jets in multiple reanalyses and the relationships of those variations to changes in the tropopause, the subvortex, UTLS transport, and stratosphere-troposphere exchange. In particular, we explore differences in jet and tropopause trends among reanalyses, and examine preliminary results on the relationships of jet and tropopause changes to those in satellite-observed trace gases. We also describe seasonal and regional differences in jet and tropopause trends.
