Regionally Varying Assessments of Upper-Level Tropical Width in Reanalyses and CMIP5 Models Using a Tropopause Break Metric

Abstract

AbstractChanges in tropical width can have important consequences in sectors including ecosystems, agriculture, and health. Observations suggest tropical expansion over the past 30 years although studies have not agreed on the magnitude of this change. Climate model projections have also indicated an expansion and show similar uncertainty in its magnitude. This study utilizes an objective, longitudinally varying, tropopause break method to define the extent of the tropics at upper levels. The location of the tropopause break is associated with enhanced stratosphere–troposphere exchange and thus its structure influences the chemical composition of the stratosphere. The method shows regional variations in the width of the upper-level tropics in the past and future. Four modern reanalyses show significant contraction of the tropics over the eastern Pacific between 1981 and 2015, and slight but significant expansion in other regions. The east Pacific narrowing contributes to zonal mean narrowing, contradicting prior work, and is attributed to the use of monthly and zonal mean data in prior studies. Six global climate models perform well in representing the climatological location of the tropical boundary. Future projections show a spread in the width trend (from ~0.5° decade−1 of narrowing to ~0.4° decade−1 of widening), with a narrowing projected across the east Pacific and Northern Hemisphere Americas. This study illustrates that this objective tropopause break method that uses instantaneous data and does not require zonal averaging is appropriate for identifying upper-level tropical width trends and the break location is connected with local and regional changes in precipitation.