The Anomalous Arctic Lower Stratospheric Polar Vortex
The strength of the Arctic lower stratospheric polar vortex is examined for the last 16 Arctic winters. Potential vorticity (PV) gradients, calculated from area-integrals of PV, defining the vortex during the 1992-1993 winter were anomalously strong and persistent. For nearly 3 months PV gradients w...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
1994
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.26.4379 http://techreports.jpl.nasa.gov/1994/94-1083.pdf |
| Summary: | The strength of the Arctic lower stratospheric polar vortex is examined for the last 16 Arctic winters. Potential vorticity (PV) gradients, calculated from area-integrals of PV, defining the vortex during the 1992-1993 winter were anomalously strong and persistent. For nearly 3 months PV gradients were closer to typical southern hemisphere values than to most northern hemisphere values. The 1992-1993 Arctic lower stratospheric vortex is thus expected to be substantially more isolated than is typical in the northern hemisphere; this is supported by air motion diagnostics computed for 3-dimensional air parcel trajectories. Such isolation will delay and perhaps reduce the export of the higher ozone concentrations typical of the winter lower stratospheric vortex to mid-latitudes, This may have contributed to the record-low total ozone amounts observed in northern latitudes in 1993. Introduction Considerable attention has been focused on the 1992-1993 Arctic winter lower stratosphere, both. |
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