Southern Hemisphere Response to the Secondary Planetary Waves Generated During the Arctic Sudden Stratospheric Final Warmings: Influence of the Quasi‐Biennial Oscillation

Abstract

AbstractBased on the Modern‐Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 reanalysis and Aura Microwave Limb Sounder geopotential height observations, the anomalously strong secondary planetary waves (PWs) with westward zonal wavenumber 1 and periods of 10–16 days are unexpectedly captured in the Southern (summer) Hemisphere (SH) during the Arctic sudden stratospheric final warmings (SSFWs) in 2015 and 2022, while no distinct secondary PW signal occurs in the SH during the 2005, 2014, and 2016 Arctic SSFWs. The Eliassen‐Palm (EP) flux diagnostics show that the secondary PWs during the 2015 and 2022 SSFWs have strong trans‐equatorial components at ∼35–60 km, but the southward EP flux from the Northern Hemisphere during the other three SSFWs decays dramatically around the equator. Further diagnostic results on the background conditions indicate that the phase of the quasi‐biennial oscillation (QBO) in the middle stratosphere plays a crucial role in the SH response to the secondary PW during SSFW. The strong equatorial westward winds at ∼32–42 km result in the critical layers and negative waveguides for the secondary W1 PW during the 2005, 2014, and 2016 SSFWs, which significantly block the trans‐equatorial propagation of PW. Such PW suppression is not observed during the 2015 and 2022 SSFWs since the middle stratospheric QBO is in the eastward phase. Moreover, the strong secondary PW in the SH during the 2015 and 2022 SSFWs can additionally induce the poleward residual circulation to facilitate the mesospheric total residual circulation transition from summer pattern to winter pattern in the SH.