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Weakened stratospheric quasibiennial oscillation driven by increased tropical mean upwelling

Nature volume 497, pages 478–481 (2013)Cite this article

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 28 August 2013

Abstract

The zonal wind in the tropical stratosphere switches between prevailing easterlies and westerlies with a period of about 28 months1. In the lowermost stratosphere, the vertical structure of this quasibiennial oscillation (QBO) is linked to the mean upwelling2,3,4, which itself is a key factor in determining stratospheric composition. Evidence for changes in the QBO have until now been equivocal, raising questions as to the extent of stratospheric circulation changes in a global warming context. Here we report an analysis of near-equatorial radiosonde observations for 1953–2012, and reveal a long-term trend of weakening amplitude in the zonal wind QBO in the tropical lower stratosphere. The trend is particularly notable at the 70-hectopascal pressure level (an altitude of about 19 kilometres), where the QBO amplitudes dropped by roughly one-third over the period. This trend is also apparent in the global warming simulations of the four models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) that realistically simulate the QBO. The weakening is most reasonably explained as resulting from a trend of increased mean tropical upwelling in the lower stratosphere. Almost all comprehensive climate models have projected an intensifying tropical upwelling in global warming scenarios5,6,7, but attempts to estimate changes in the upwelling by using observational data have yielded ambiguous, inconclusive or contradictory results8,9,10. Our discovery of a weakening trend in the lower-stratosphere QBO amplitude provides strong support for the existence of a long-term trend of enhanced upwelling near the tropical tropopause.

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Figure 1: Time–height section of the three-cycle mean amplitude of the observed QBO, and the height dependence of the amplitude trend over time.
Figure 2: Time–height section of the three-cycle mean amplitude of the simulated QBO, and height dependence of amplitude trend over time.
Figure 3: Time variation in the three-cycle mean amplitude of the observed and modelled QBO and in modelled annual mean upward velocity at 70 hPa over 15° S–15° N.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology through its support of the International Pacific Research Center, by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (A-1201) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan and by JSPS KAKENHI grant nos 23740363 and 24340113. This work was also supported by NASA (grant no. NNX07AG53G) and by NOAA (grant no. NA11NMF4320128), organisations that sponsor research at the International Pacific Research Center. We thank A. Noda, H. Tokinaga, M. Fujiwara, K. Miyazaki, M. Takahashi, T. Hirooka, K. Sato, H. Nakamura and Y. N. Takayabu for suggestions. We also thank O. Arakawa and N. Hirota for handling the CMIP5 data archive. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modelling groups for making available their model output. For CMIP, the US Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. We also acknowledge the Data Integration and Analysis System (DIAS) Fund for National Key Technology from MEXT.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 3173-25 Showamachi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 236-0001, Japan,

    Yoshio Kawatani

  2. International Pacific Research Center, SOEST, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1680 East West Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA,

    Kevin Hamilton

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  1. Yoshio Kawatani
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Contributions

Y.K. and K.H. analysed the data. K.H. and Y.K. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yoshio Kawatani.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Text, Supplementary Figures 1-13 and Supplementary References. This file was replaced on 28 August 2013 in order to correct Supplementary Figures 3 and 9 and also to make minor changes to the text. Please see the Corrigendum, doi:10.1038/nature12528, which is associated with this paper. (PDF 8728 kb)

Supplementary Data

Sheet 1 shows the monthly mean zonal wind data provided by the Free Berlin University and Sheet 2 shows the monthly mean zonal wind data at 70 hPa provided by IGRA. (XLS 184 kb)

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Kawatani, Y., Hamilton, K. Weakened stratospheric quasibiennial oscillation driven by increased tropical mean upwelling. Nature 497, 478–481 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12140

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