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AGU: Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmospheres

 

Keywords

  • stratosphere
  • trends

Index Terms

  • Atmospheric Processes: Climate change and variability
  • Atmospheric Processes: Stratosphere/troposphere interactions
  • Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Middle atmosphere: composition and chemistry
Abstract
Cited By (42)
 

Abstract

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, D02107, 21 PP., 2009
doi:10.1029/2008JD010421

An update of observed stratospheric temperature trends

William J. Randel

National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Keith P. Shine

Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK

John Austin

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NOAA, Princeton, New Jersey, USA

John Barnett

Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics, Oxford University, Oxford, UK

Chantal Claud

Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, IPSL, UMR8539, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, Palaiseau, France

Nathan P. Gillett

Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Philippe Keckhut

Service d'Aéronomie, University Versailles-Saint-Quentin, Verrieres-le-Buisson, France

Ulrike Langematz

Institut fur Meteorologie, Freie Universitat Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Roger Lin

Climate Prediction Center, NCEP, National Weather Service, NOAA, Camp Springs, Maryland, USA

Craig Long

Climate Prediction Center, NCEP, National Weather Service, NOAA, Camp Springs, Maryland, USA

Carl Mears

Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, California, USA

Alvin Miller

Climate Prediction Center, NCEP, National Weather Service, NOAA, Camp Springs, Maryland, USA

John Nash

Met Office, Exeter, UK

Dian J. Seidel

Air Resources Laboratory, NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA

David W. J. Thompson

Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

Fei Wu

National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Shigeo Yoden

Department of Geophysics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

An updated analysis of observed stratospheric temperature variability and trends is presented on the basis of satellite, radiosonde, and lidar observations. Satellite data include measurements from the series of NOAA operational instruments, including the Microwave Sounding Unit covering 1979–2007 and the Stratospheric Sounding Unit (SSU) covering 1979–2005. Radiosonde results are compared for six different data sets, incorporating a variety of homogeneity adjustments to account for changes in instrumentation and observational practices. Temperature changes in the lower stratosphere show cooling of ∼0.5 K/decade over much of the globe for 1979–2007, with some differences in detail among the different radiosonde and satellite data sets. Substantially larger cooling trends are observed in the Antarctic lower stratosphere during spring and summer, in association with development of the Antarctic ozone hole. Trends in the lower stratosphere derived from radiosonde data are also analyzed for a longer record (back to 1958); trends for the presatellite era (1958–1978) have a large range among the different homogenized data sets, implying large trend uncertainties. Trends in the middle and upper stratosphere have been derived from updated SSU data, taking into account changes in the SSU weighting functions due to observed atmospheric CO2 increases. The results show mean cooling of 0.5–1.5 K/decade during 1979–2005, with the greatest cooling in the upper stratosphere near 40–50 km. Temperature anomalies throughout the stratosphere were relatively constant during the decade 1995–2005. Long records of lidar temperature measurements at a few locations show reasonable agreement with SSU trends, although sampling uncertainties are large in the localized lidar measurements. Updated estimates of the solar cycle influence on stratospheric temperatures show a statistically significant signal in the tropics (∼30°N–S), with an amplitude (solar maximum minus solar minimum) of ∼0.5 K (lower stratosphere) to ∼1.0 K (upper stratosphere).

Received 15 May 2008; accepted 23 October 2008; published 23 January 2009.

Citation: Randel, W. J., et al. (2009), An update of observed stratospheric temperature trends, J. Geophys. Res., 114, D02107, doi:10.1029/2008JD010421.

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