Changes of cooling near mesopause under global warming from observations and model simulations

Abstract

The results of joint analysis of temperature variations near mesopause from long-term measurements at the Zvenigorod Scientific Station of the Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics RAS in 1960–2015 and variations of surface air temperature characterizing global climate change. Together with variations of temperature at the mesopause T ms from measurements of the hydroxyl emissions we analyzed the temperature variations near mesopause T m reduced to the same level of solar activity. The observed strong decrease in temperature near mesopause during last decades, particularly in winter, with its tendency to slow down since the 1980’s is was detected against the background of general increase in the surface air temperature of the Northern Hemisphere T NHs and the Earth as a whole. It was revealed a sharp drop in winter temperature near mesopause in 1970s. and its synchronicity with the shift in climatic features at the surface associated with changes in formation of El Nino events and their impact on the global climate. The general significant negative correlation of temperature variations near mesopause and T NHs detected from 56-year observational data was not accompanied by any significant coherence between the most long-period temperature variations from the cross-wavelet analysis. To assess the possible manifestation of this coherence the results of numerical simulations with a global climate model were used. According to model simulations for the 20–21 centuries taking into account anthropogenic forcings for significant coherence between long-term variations T m and T NHs the prolonged observations are required for temperature near mesopause–about a century or more.