Effect of tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures on tropopause height

Abstract

Troposphere is an important layer of the atmosphere because most of the weather phenomena are confined to this layer. Variations in tropopause height significantly depend upon the changes in upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric temperature. Availability of global positioning system radio occultation high vertical temperature profiles on better temporal and spatial scales gives an opportunity to study the tropopause height variations with respect to tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures. Analysing these profiles along with in situ observations, we studied the impact of stratospheric and tropospheric warming or cooling on tropopause height over Indian region. Decrease in stratospheric temperature increases the tropopause height, and increase in tropospheric temperature decreases the tropopause height. Stratospheric temperature is found to have more impact on tropopause height compared to tropospheric temperature, and this impact is more evident over ocean than land. The analysis also brings out a good correlation between stratospheric ozone concentrations and its temperature. In the light of decreasing stratospheric ozone concentrations due to global warming, this study points out towards a possibility of increase in tropopause height.