AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Editors' Highlight

Links between wind patterns in the stratosphere and tropospheric climate change

It is well established that the troposphere, the atmospheric layer closest to the Earth's surface, significantly influences the circulation of the stratosphere, the layer above the troposphere. The alternate possibility, that the stratosphere can have significant downward influence on tropospheric circulation, is less well established. Sigmond et al. (2008) investigated the potential for such downward influence to alter current predictions of global warming. Comparing the predicted warming response in two general circulation models—one with a well-resolved stratosphere (high-top version) and one without a well-resolved stratosphere (low-top version)—they find significant differences. While similar results in the past have been taken as evidence that a well-resolved stratosphere is essential for modeling future climate projections, the authors questioned this conclusion. Instead, they show that further analysis demonstrates that the differing warming responses in the two models are not related to the differing model lid height, but are due to differing treatments of parameterized gravity waves, which have a large influence on the climatological winds in the lower stratosphere.

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