Abstract
Abstract Measurements of water vapor and methane from the Halogen Occultation Experiment instrument on board the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite are used to study the interannual variability of trace gas distributions in the atmosphere. Particular attention is paid to the mechanisms influencing trace gas distributions in the subtropics. The study highlights the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) dependence of subtropical tracer distributions more clearly than in previous studies. There is a strong correlation between the equatorial wind QBO and the slope of the tracer isolines in the Northern Hemisphere subtropics, with steeper subtropical isoline slopes in the easterly phase compared with the westerly phase. This is particularly so in the lower stratosphere. Two possible mechanisms for the QBO signal in subtropical isoline slopes are identified: advection by the mean circulation and isentropic mixing. A comparison between the QBO signal in the slope of the tracer isolines and the isentropic tracer grad...
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