• Atmosphere
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.461-472
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• 2015

The sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), which is characterized by an abrupt increase of polar stratospheric temperature by several tens of degrees in a week, has been known to affect tropospheric weather and climate on sub-seasonal time scale in the boreal winter. Such downward coupling has been often examined in North Atlantic and Europe, but rarely examined in East Asia. In this study, by applying the two definitions of SSW to the reanalysis data, the possible impacts of the SSW events on the surface air temperature (SAT) and tropospheric circulation in East Asia are analyzed. It is found that Eurasian continent, including Siberia and the Northeast Asia, tends to experience anomalously cold SAT for up to sixty days after the SSW events. The resulting SAT anomalies largely resemble those associated with negative Artic Oscillation. However, over East Asia, SSW-related SAT change is weak and not statistically significant. Only during the extreme SSW events when the downward coupling between the stratosphere and troposphere is strong, East Asia exhibits significantly cold SAT anomalies. This relationship is presented by grouping SSW events into those followed by cold SAT anomalies over East Asia and those by warm anomalies for varying threshold values of the SSW events.

• Atmosphere
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.123-139
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• 2018

The prediction skills of stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) events and its impacts on the tropospheric prediction skills in global seasonal forecasting system version 5 (GloSea5), an operating subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) model in Korea Meteorological Administration, are examined. The model successfully predicted SSW events with the maximum lead time of 11.8 and 13.2 days in terms of anomaly correlation coefficient (ACC) and mean squared skill score (MSSS), respectively. The prediction skills are mainly determined by phase error of zonal wave-number 1 with a minor contribution of zonal wavenumber 2 error. It is also found that an enhanced prediction of SSW events tends to increase the tropospheric prediction skills. This result suggests that well-resolved stratospheric processes in GloSea5 can improve S2S prediction in the troposphere.

• Atmosphere
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.493-503
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• 2023

This study investigates the downward influences of sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) in February 2018 using a subseasonal-to-seasonal forecast model, Global Seasonal forecasting system version 6 (GloSea6). To quantify the influences of SSW on the tropospheric prediction skills, free-evolving (FREE) forecasts are compared to stratospheric nudging (NUDGED) forecasts where zonal-mean flows in the stratosphere are relaxed to the observation. When the models are initialized on 8 February 2018, both FREE and NUDGED forecasts successfully predicted the SSW and its downward influences. However, FREE forecasts initialized on 25 January 2018 failed to predict the SSW and downward propagation of negative Northern Annular Mode (NAM). NUDGED forecasts with SSW nudging qualitatively well predicted the downward propagation of negative NAM. In quantity, NUDGED forecasts exhibit a higher mean squared skill score of 500 hPa geopotential height than FREE forecasts in late February and early March. The surface air temperature and precipitation are also better predicted. Cold and dry anomalies over the Eurasia are particularly well predicted in NUDGED compared to FREE forecasts. These results suggest that a successful prediction of SSW could improve the surface prediction skills on subseasonal-to-seasonal time scale.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.69-75
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• 2020

We analyze the observations of temperature and ozone measured by the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) during the period of 2005-2016, to investigate the vertical structures of temperature and ozone in the stratosphere and mesosphere during stratospheric sudden warming (SSW). We compute the height profiles of the correlation coefficients between 55 height levels of MLS temperature anomalies and compare them with the results of Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model simulations for three major SSWs. We also construct the temperature and ozone anomalies for the events to investigate the changes in the temperature and ozone distributions with height. There seems to always be a relatively weak but broad negative correlation between the temperature anomaly at 10 hPa and temperature anomalies over the entire mesosphere during the period before SSW events. However, this pattern gets stronger in the lower mesosphere but becomes a positive correlation in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere after the onset of SSW. We also found that the temperatures from the simulations show a similar trend to the observational results but with smaller variations and the transition height from negative to positive correlation in the mesosphere is much lower in the simulation than in the actual observations.

• Atmosphere
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.171-183
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• 2021

The sensitivity of the extratropical jet to the stratospheric mean state is investigated by conducting a series of idealized numerical experiments using a dynamic-core general circulation model. When the polar stratosphere is forced to be cold, the extratropical jet, defined by the 850-hPa zonal wind, tends to shift poleward without much change in its intensity. The opposite is also true when the polar stratosphere becomes warm. This jet response, however, is not exactly linear. A poleward jet shift under a cold vortex is much weaker than an equatorward jet shift under a warm vortex. The jet intensity change is also larger under a warm vortex. This result indicates that the stratosphere-troposphere downward coupling is more efficient for the warm and weak polar vortex. This finding is consistent with a stronger downward coupling during stratospheric sudden warming than vortex intensification events in the Northern Hemisphere winter, possibly providing a clue to better understand the observed stratosphere-troposphere downward coupling.