Influence of topography on the temperature variation around the tropical tropopause layer

Abstract:

Temperature variations in the Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL) are an important factor for dehydration in the UTLS region. It is known that Kelvin waves induce large temperature variations in the TTL. We investigated the temperature variations in the TTL using both numerical data produced by the Nonhydrostatic Icosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) and various observational data including satellite data (the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate; COSMIC), the reanalysis data of different resolution (ERA-40-interim, NCEP-CFSR, MERRA, YOTC-ECMWF), and radiosonde data for the Cooperative Indian Ocean experiment on intra-seasonal variability in the Year 2011 (CINDY).

We found that all the data shows that the temperature variations become larger over the mountainous regions of the Indonesian maritime continent than over the oceanic regions and that the large temperature variations are associated with Kelvin waves. As, the horizontal resolution of the reanalysis becomes higher, the standard deviations of the TTL temperature near the mountains became larger. When Kelvin waves passed over the Indonesian maritime continent, the amplitude of temperature becomes about 2 K larger over the mountainous regions. The power spectrum for the periods between 7 days and 12 days was larger over the mountainous regions compared with that over the ocean. The sensitivity study using the stretch-NICAM shows that the height of mountains clearly affect the amplitude of temperature near the TTL.