Compensation between Resolved and Unresolved Wave Drag in the Stratospheric Final Warmings of the Southern Hemisphere

Abstract

Abstract The role of planetary wave drag and gravity wave drag in the breakdown of the stratospheric polar vortex and its associated final warming in the Southern Hemisphere is examined using reanalyses from MERRA and a middle-atmosphere dynamical model. The focus of this work is on identifying the causes of the delay in the final breakdown of the stratospheric polar vortex found in current general circulation models. Sensitivity experiments were conducted by changing the launched momentum flux in the gravity wave drag parameterization. Increasing the launched momentum flux produces a delay of the final warming date with respect to the control integration of more than 2 weeks. The sensitivity experiments show significant interactions between planetary waves and unresolved gravity waves. The increase of gravity wave drag in the model is compensated by a strong decrease of Eliassen–Palm flux divergence (i.e., planetary wave drag). This concomitant decrease of planetary wave drag is at least partially responsible for the delay of the final warming in the model. Experiments that change the resolved planetary wave activity entering the stratosphere through artificially changing the bottom boundary flux of the model also show an interaction mechanism. Gravity wave drag responds via critical-level filtering to planetary wave drag perturbations by partially compensating them. Therefore, there is a feedback cycle that leads to a partial compensation between gravity wave and planetary wave drag.