Submitted to Sciences
Based on observational data analysis and general circulation model (GCM) sim-ulations, we suggest that ozone depletion in the stratospheric Arctic plays the major role in causing late winter and springtime warming over the high-latitude Northern-Hemisphere (NH) continents during the past two decades...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.140.8296 http://www.amath.washington.edu/research/articles/Tung/ozone.pdf |
| Summary: | Based on observational data analysis and general circulation model (GCM) sim-ulations, we suggest that ozone depletion in the stratospheric Arctic plays the major role in causing late winter and springtime warming over the high-latitude Northern-Hemisphere (NH) continents during the past two decades. Our results show that during late winter and springtime stratospheric temperature contrasts between the Arctic and middle latitudes have been significantly enhanced since 1979. This is consistent with the observed downward ozone trend. The enhanced temperature gradients lead to strengthened westerly winds near the stratospheric subpolar region, which refract planetary wave toward low latitudes and reduce wave activity at high latitudes in both the stratosphere and the troposphere. This enhances the prevailing westerly winds over the high-latitude surface, which blow warm and moist air from oceans to the continents and cause late winter and spring-time warming over the continents. 2 Typeset using REVTEX |
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