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Large anomalies in lower stratospheric water vapour and ice during the 2015–2016 El Niño

Nature Geoscience volume 10, pages 405–409 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

The strong and unusual El Niño of 2015–2016 produced a remarkable perturbation to the hydrologic budget of the tropical tropopause layer (14–19 km). This region regulates stratospheric water vapour, which has a direct radiative impact on surface temperatures. To first order, the coldest tropical tropopause temperature regulates the amount of water vapour entering the stratosphere by controlling the amount of dehydration in the rising air. Here we show that tropical convective cloud ice and associated cirrus sublimating at unusually high altitudes might also have a role in stratospheric hydration. The 2015–2016 El Niño produced decadal record water vapour amounts in the tropical Western Pacific, coincident with warm tropopause temperature anomalies. In the Central Pacific, convective cloud ice was observed 2 km above the anomalously cold tropopause. A trajectory-based dehydration model based on two reanalysis temperature and wind fields can account for only about 0.5–0.6 ppmv of the ∼0.9 ppmv tropical lower stratospheric moistening observed during this event. This suggests that unresolved convective dynamics and/or associated sublimation of lofted ice particles also contributed to lower stratospheric moistening. These observations suggest that convective moistening could contribute to future climate change-induced stratospheric water vapour increases.

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Figure 1: Tropical ice water path, water vapour and CPT temperature anomalies for December 2015.
Figure 2: Time series of IWP, convective IWC, water vapour and temperature anomalies.
Figure 3: MLS and trajectory modelled water vapour anomaly comparison.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the CALIPSO project and team, and NASA ROSES NNH15ZDA001N-CCST (CALIPSO-CloudSat science team). NOAA participation in this study (S.M.D. and K.H.R.) was supported by NOAA’s Climate Program Office. We appreciate the helpful comments made by colleagues M. Schoeberl and E. Jensen.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia 23664, USA

    Melody A. Avery

  2. NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA

    Sean M. Davis & Karen H. Rosenlof

  3. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder (CIRES), Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

    Sean M. Davis

  4. Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA

    Hao Ye & Andrew E. Dessler

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  1. Melody A. Avery
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Contributions

M.A.A. provided gridded cloud ice water content from the CALIOP data record, integrated above the CPT altitude and 17 km. S.M.D. and K.H.R. analysed the MLS water vapour observations and MERRA-2 temperature fields. H.Y. and A.E.D. provided the trajectory model and model runs. All authors are responsible for the scientific interpretation of the data and for writing the text.

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Correspondence to Melody A. Avery.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Avery, M., Davis, S., Rosenlof, K. et al. Large anomalies in lower stratospheric water vapour and ice during the 2015–2016 El Niño. Nature Geosci 10, 405–409 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2961

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