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Impacts, processes and projections of the quasi-biennial oscillation

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 3, pages 588–603 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

In the tropical stratosphere, deep layers of eastward and westward winds encircle the globe and descend regularly from the upper stratosphere to the tropical tropopause. With a complete cycle typically lasting almost 2.5 years, this quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is arguably the most predictable mode of atmospheric variability that is not linked to the changing seasons. The QBO affects climate phenomena outside the tropical stratosphere, including ozone transport, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Madden–Julian Oscillation, and its high predictability could enable better forecasts of these phenomena if models can accurately represent the coupling processes. Climate and forecasting models are increasingly able to simulate stratospheric oscillations resembling the QBO, but exhibit common systematic errors such as weak amplitude in the lowermost tropical stratosphere. Uncertainties about the waves that force the oscillation, particularly the momentum fluxes from small-scale gravity waves excited by deep convection, make its simulation challenging. Improved representation of the processes governing the QBO is expected to lead to better forecasts of the oscillation and its impacts, increased understanding of unusual events such as the two QBO disruptions observed since 2016, and more reliable future projections of QBO behaviour under climate change.

Key points

  • The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is a periodic wind variation in the equatorial stratosphere with a timescale of almost 2.5 years.

  • The QBO affects predictability globally owing to its teleconnections to phenomena outside the tropical stratosphere.

  • Many climate models are now able to simulate QBO-like oscillations, but with systematic errors including weak amplitude in the lowermost stratosphere.

  • Improving the representation of the QBO in models is challenging owing to uncertainties in observations and in understanding of the waves that drive the oscillation.

  • Climate models project a future weakening of the QBO amplitude.

  • Although the QBO has historically been very predictable, since 2016 its regular cycling has been disrupted twice, for reasons not yet well understood.

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Fig. 1: The QBO in tropical stratospheric zonal wind and global circulation of the stratosphere.
Fig. 2: Global QBO teleconnections and their pathways.
Fig. 3: Model biases in tropical stratospheric wind variability.
Fig. 4: Predictability of QBO evolution affected by model biases.
Fig. 5: QBO changes under future climate change scenarios.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is a major facility sponsored by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement No. 1852977. Portions of this study were supported by the Regional and Global Model Analysis (RGMA) component of the Earth and Environmental System Modeling Program of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) (via National Science Foundation grant number IA 1844590). P.A.N. is funded under the Atmospheric Chemistry, Modeling, and Analysis Program (grant number NNH16ZDA001N-ACMAP). M.P.B. was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (grant number NE/M006123/1). This research has been supported by the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI (grant numbers JP18H01286, 19H05702 and 20H01973) and by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (grant number JPMEERF20192004) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan. N.B. was supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Programme, funded by BEIS and Defra and the UK-China Research and Innovation Partnership Fund through the Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CSSP) China, as part of the Newton Fund. J. Alexander was supported by the US National Science Foundation (grant numbers 1642644 and 1829373) and NASA (grant number 80NSSC17K0169). S.M.O. and L.G. were supported by the UK National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and by the NERC North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study (ACSIS) (grant number NE/N018001) and NERC grant number NE/P006779/1.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: James Anstey, Scott Osprey.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    James A. Anstey

  2. Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Scott M. Osprey & Lesley Gray

  3. National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Oxford, UK

    Scott M. Osprey & Lesley Gray

  4. NorthWest Research Associates, Boulder, CO, USA

    Joan Alexander

  5. Global Systems Institute and Department of Mathematics, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    Mark P. Baldwin

  6. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK

    Neal Butchart

  7. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Yokohama, Japan

    Yoshio Kawatani

  8. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD, USA

    Paul A. Newman

  9. Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory (CGD), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO, USA

    Jadwiga H. Richter

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S.M.O. led the writing of the first draft. J.A.A. led the revisions and reviewer responses. All authors individually led the compilation of specific sections, figures and boxes within the manuscript. All authors contributed to researching data for the article, discussion of content, writing the article and reviewing/editing the article before submission.

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Anstey, J.A., Osprey, S.M., Alexander, J. et al. Impacts, processes and projections of the quasi-biennial oscillation. Nat Rev Earth Environ 3, 588–603 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00323-7

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