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The strength of the meridional overturning circulation of the stratosphere

Nature Geoscience volume 10, pages 663–667 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

The distribution of gases such as ozone and water vapour in the stratosphere—which affect surface climate—is influenced by the meridional overturning of mass in the stratosphere, the Brewer–Dobson circulation. However, observation-based estimates of the global strength of this circulation are difficult to obtain. Here we present two calculations of the mean strength of the meridional overturning of the stratosphere. We analyse satellite data that document the global diabatic circulation between 2007–2011, and compare these to three reanalysis data sets and to simulations with a state-of-the-art chemistry–climate model. Using measurements of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) and nitrous oxide, we calculate the global mean diabatic overturning mass flux throughout the stratosphere. In the lower stratosphere, these two estimates agree, and at a potential temperature level of 460 K (about 20 km or 60 hPa in tropics) the global circulation strength is 6.3–7.6 × 109 kg s−1. Higher in the atmosphere, only the SF6-based estimate is available, and it diverges from the reanalysis data and simulations. Interpretation of the SF6-data-based estimate is limited because of a mesospheric sink of SF6; however, the reanalyses also differ substantially from each other. We conclude that the uncertainty in the mean meridional overturning circulation strength at upper levels of the stratosphere amounts to at least 100%.

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Figure 1: Age of air on the 500 K surface.
Figure 2: The average age difference between downwelling and upwelling age of air on each isentrope between 2007–2011.
Figure 3: The strength of the total overturning circulation through each isentrope averaged between 2007–2011.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Sheshadri and S. Solomon for helpful discussions. Funding for M.L. was provided by the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate fellowship. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation grant AGS-1547733 to MIT and AGS-1546585 to NYU. F.J.H. was funded by the ‘CAWSES’ priority programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG) under project STI 210/5-3 and by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the ‘ROMIC’ programme under project 01LG1221B. MIPAS data processing was co-funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) within the ‘SEREMISA’ project under contract number 50EE1547. A.M. acknowledges funding support from the European Research Council through the ACCI project (Grant 267760) lead by J. Pyle. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is sponsored by the US National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in the publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. WACCM is a component of the Community Earth System Model (CESM), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy. Computing resources were provided by NCAR’s Climate Simulation Laboratory, sponsored by NSF and other agencies. This research was enabled by the computational and storage resources of NCAR’s Computational and Information System Laboratory (CISL). A portion of the research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the NASA Aeronautics and Space Administration. One of the datasets used for this study is from the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA 55) project carried out by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA). MERRA was developed by the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office and supported by the NASA Modeling, Analysis and Prediction Program. Source data files can be acquired from the Goddard Earth Science Data Information Services Center (GES DISC). ERA-Interim data provided courtesy of ECMWF.

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Author notes

  1. Marianna Linz

    Present address: Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, California, 90095, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology—Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Physical Oceanography, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA

    Marianna Linz

  2. Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA

    R. Alan Plumb

  3. Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, New York, 10012, USA

    Edwin P. Gerber

  4. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe, 76021, Germany

    Florian J. Haenel & Gabriele Stiller

  5. Atmospheric Chemistry Observations and Modeling Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, 80307, USA

    Douglas E. Kinnison

  6. Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0WA, UK

    Alison Ming

  7. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, 91109, USA

    Jessica L. Neu

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Contributions

M.L. performed the research and wrote the manuscript with the guidance of R.A.P. and E.P.G. F.J.H. and G.S. provided the MIPAS age, pressure and temperature data and guidance on that product. D.E.K provided the WACCM output. A.M. performed calculations with ERA-Interim. J.L.N. provided help with the N2O data and consulted on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Marianna Linz.

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Linz, M., Plumb, R., Gerber, E. et al. The strength of the meridional overturning circulation of the stratosphere. Nature Geosci 10, 663–667 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo3013

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