Met Office Analyses Research Articles

Observation of Jet Stream Winds during NAWDEX and Characterization of Systematic Meteorological Analysis Errors

Abstract Observations across the North Atlantic jet stream with high vertical resolution are used to explore the structure of the jet stream, including the sharpness of vertical wind shear changes across the tropopause and the wind speed. Data were obtained during the North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment (NAWDEX) by an airborne Doppler wind lidar, dropsondes, and a ground-based stratosphere–troposphere radar. During the campaign, small wind speed biases throughout the troposphere and lower stratosphere of only −0.41 and −0.15 m s−1 are found, respectively, in the ECMWF and Met Office analyses and short-term forecasts. However, this study finds large and spatially coherent wind errors up to ±10 m s−1 for individual cases, with the strongest errors occurring above the tropopause in upper-level ridges. ECMWF and Met Office analyses indicate similar spatial structures in wind errors, even though their forecast models and data assimilation schemes differ greatly. The assimilation of operational observational data brings the analyses closer to the independent verifying observations, but it cannot fully compensate for the forecast error. Models tend to underestimate the peak jet stream wind, the vertical wind shear (by a factor of 2–5), and the abruptness of the change in wind shear across the tropopause, which is a major contribution to the meridional potential vorticity gradient. The differences are large enough to influence forecasts of Rossby wave disturbances to the jet stream with an anticipated effect on weather forecast skill even on large scales.

A Simple Technique to Infer the Missing Gravity Wave Drag in the Middle Atmosphere Using a General Circulation Model: Potential Vorticity Budget

AbstractA simple technique to infer the missing momentum forcing in a general circulation model is developed and evaluated. The response of the large-scale dynamic equations to an external momentum forcing presents a nonlocal response in the zonal and meridional wind. On the other hand, the response to the external momentum forcing in the potential vorticity (PV) is a local growing geostrophic mode, so that there is a direct relationship between the external momentum forcing and the response in PV. In this work, this fact is exploited to diagnose the missing momentum forcing in the extratropics using a general circulation model. The capability of the simple technique to estimate a concentrated gravity wave forcing is evaluated. A dynamical model is evolved with prescribed sources and sinks of PV and then the technique is used to estimate these known momentum sources and sinks. PV is found to give a much better diagnostic of gravity wave drag compared to the more traditional zonal wind differences. The technique is also used in a realistic environment, in which the sources and sinks of PV in Met Office analyses are determined. The estimation of this missing forcing with this simple technique is compared with the estimation given by a more complex data assimilation technique developed by Pulido and Thuburn and, in general, a good agreement is found. The simple gravity wave drag estimation technique can be used in an online data assimilation cycle, using the increments of the analysis, and also offline, using a general circulation model and observations.

A Comparison of the Impact of QuikScat and WindSat Wind Vector Products on Met Office Analyses and Forecasts

Several studies have demonstrated that retrievals of wind vectors from the WindSat polarimetric radiometer are of sufficient quality to be considered for assimilation in operational numerical weather prediction models. In this paper, WindSat data are used in a state-of-the-art global meteorological analysis and forecasting system. Each wind vector contains a directional ambiguity and so is assimilated in a similar way to that of scatterometer data. The forecast impact of using analyses containing information from WindSat data was investigated for a period during August and September of 2005, when a large number of tropical cyclones were present. Forecast errors were reduced in the surface pressure fields, and the average improvement across the forecast range was found to be 1.0%. This is comparable to the improvement of 1.1% found in the same fields when winds were assimilated from the QuikScat scatterometer. The impact on tropical cyclone tracks in the forecasts was also studied. The scatterometer improved (reduced) the track errors markedly by 25% in the analyses. When impacts across the forecast range out to five days were also included, the improvement was found to be 8%. In contrast, the assimilation of WindSat data improved the analysis track errors by 7%, although this figure was found to be 10% across the complete forecast range.

The Seasonal Cycle of Gravity Wave Drag in the Middle Atmosphere

Abstract Using a variational technique, middle atmosphere gravity wave drag (GWD) is estimated from Met Office middle atmosphere analyses for the year 2002. The technique employs an adjoint model of a middle atmosphere dynamical model to minimize a cost function that measures the differences between the model state and observations. The control variables are solely the horizontal components of GWD; therefore, the minimization determines the optimal estimate of the drag. For each month, Met Office analyses are taken as the initial condition for the first day of the month, and also as observations for each successive day. In this way a three-dimensional GWD field is obtained for the entire year with a temporal resolution of 1 day. GWD shows a pronounced seasonal cycle. During solstices, there are deceleration regions of the polar jet centered at about 63° latitude in the winter hemisphere, with a peak of 49 m s−1 day−1 at 0.24 hPa in the Southern Hemisphere; the summer hemisphere also shows a deceleration region but much weaker, with a peak of 24 m s−1 day−1 centered at 45° latitude and 0.6 hPa. During equinoxes GWD is weak and exhibits a smooth transition between the winter and summer situation. The height and latitude of the deceleration center in both winter and summer hemispheres appear to be constant. Important longitudinal dependencies in GWD are found that are related to planetary wave activity; GWD intensifies in the exit region of jet streaks. In the lower tropical stratosphere, the estimated GWD shows a westward GWD descending together with the westward phase of the quasi-biennial oscillation. Above, GWD exhibits a semiannual pattern that is approximately out of phase with the semiannual oscillation in the zonal wind. Furthermore, a descending GWD pattern is found at those heights, similar in magnitude and sign to that in the lower stratosphere.

Middle atmosphere background climatology from a simple circulation model

An updated mechanistic circulation model is used to calculate monthly tables of winds and temperatures in the middle atmosphere, including mean values, tides, and stationary planetary waves. The model includes realistic background ozone and water vapour climatologies and a long-term mean stationary planetary wave forcing from Met Office analyses. The results are compared with existing empirical climatologies. The model climatology may be used as reference values for measurements, or to complete empirical climatologies especially for the height regions not well covered with measurements.

Simulations of Dynamics and Transport during the September 2002 Antarctic Major Warming

Abstract A mechanistic model simulation initialized on 14 September 2002, forced by 100-hPa geopotential heights from Met Office analyses, reproduced the dynamical features of the 2002 Antarctic major warming. The vortex split on ∼25 September; recovery after the warming, westward and equatorward tilting vortices, and strong baroclinic zones in temperature associated with a dipole pattern of upward and downward vertical velocities were all captured in the simulation. Model results and analyses show a pattern of strong upward wave propagation throughout the warming, with zonal wind deceleration throughout the stratosphere at high latitudes before the vortex split, continuing in the middle and upper stratosphere and spreading to lower latitudes after the split. Three-dimensional Eliassen–Palm fluxes show the largest upward and poleward wave propagation in the 0°–90°E sector prior to the vortex split (coincident with the location of strongest cyclogenesis at the model’s lower boundary), with an additional region of strong upward propagation developing near 180°–270°E. These characteristics are similar to those of Arctic wave-2 major warmings, except that during this warming, the vortex did not split below ∼600 K. The effects of poleward transport and mixing dominate modeled trace gas evolution through most of the mid- to high-latitude stratosphere, with a core region in the lower-stratospheric vortex where enhanced descent dominates and the vortex remains isolated. Strongly tilted vortices led to low-latitude air overlying vortex air, resulting in highly unusual trace gas profiles. Simulations driven with several meteorological datasets reproduced the major warming, but in others, stronger latitudinal gradients at high latitudes at the model boundary resulted in simulations without a complete vortex split in the midstratosphere. Numerous tests indicate very high sensitivity to the boundary fields, especially the wave-2 amplitude. Major warmings occurred for initial fields with stronger winds and larger vortices, but not smaller vortices, consistent with the initiation of wind deceleration by upward-propagating waves near the poleward edge of the region where wave 2 can propagate above the jet core. Thus, given the observed 100-hPa boundary forcing, stratospheric preconditioning is not needed to reproduce a major warming similar to that observed. The anomalously strong forcing in the lower stratosphere can be viewed as the primary direct cause of the major warming.

Three-Dimensional Model Study of the Antarctic Ozone Hole in 2002 and Comparison with 2000

Abstract An offline 3D chemical transport model (CTM) has been used to study the evolution of the Antarctic ozone hole during the sudden warming event of 2002 and to compare it with similar simulations for 2000. The CTM has a detailed stratospheric chemistry scheme and was forced by ECMWF and Met Office analyses. Both sets of meteorological analyses permit the CTM to produce a good simulation of the evolution of the 2002 vortex and its breakup, based on O3 comparisons with Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) column data, sonde data, and first results from the Environmental Satellite–Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (ENVISAT–MIPAS) instrument. The ozone chemical loss rates in the polar lower stratosphere in September 2002 were generally less than in 2000, because of the smaller average active chlorine, although around the time of the warming, the largest vortex chemical loss rates were similar to those in 2000 (i.e., −2.6 DU day−1 between 12 and 26 km). However, the disturbed vortex of 2002 caused a somewhat larger influence of polar processing on Southern Hemisphere (SH) midlatitudes in September. Overall, the calculations show that the average SH chemical O3 loss (poleward of 30°S) by September was ∼20 DU less in 2002 compared with 2000. A significant contribution to the much larger observed polar O3 column in September 2002 was due to the enhanced descent at the vortex edge and increased horizontal transport, associated with the distorted vortex.

On the verification of the quality of SABER temperature, geopotential height, and wind fields by comparison with Met Office assimilated analyses

The Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) experiment on the Thermosphere‐Ionosphere‐Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics satellite has delivered over 1 year of radiance profile data from which middle atmosphere temperature profiles have been retrieved. Version 1.01 temperatures are precise and sufficiently accurate, such that one can obtain estimates of their synoptic distributions on pressure surfaces. A sequential estimation algorithm was used to generate daily, zonal Fourier coefficients of temperature (through zonal wave number 6), and maps on constant pressure surfaces were generated using those coefficients. Maps of temperature, geopotential height, and geostrophic winds are compared with products from the Met Office analyses. Stratospheric differences are within about 2 K for temperature and 160 m for geopotential height. The respective wind fields indicate flow patterns that are similar. Examples of the fields are shown for a period in February 2002 during a sudden stratospheric warming event that occurred in the Northern Hemisphere. A cooling of the middle mesosphere accompanies the warming. It is anticipated that large‐scale, middle atmospheric dynamics and transport studies can be undertaken and that data assimilation products can be extended to near the mesopause using the SABER profiles.

Lower stratospheric temperature differences between meteorological analyses in two cold Arctic winters and their impact on polar processing studies

A quantitative comparison of six meteorological analyses is presented for the cold 1999/2000 and 1995/1996 Arctic winters. Using different analyzed data sets to obtain temperatures and temperature histories can have significant consequences. The area with temperatures below a polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) formation threshold commonly varies by ∼25% between the analyses, with some differences over 50%. Biases between analyses vary from year to year; in January 2000, Met Office analyses were coldest and National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) analyses were warmest, while NCEP analyses were usually coldest in 1995/1996 and NCEP/National Center for Atmospheric Research Reanalysis (REAN) were usually warmest. Freie Universität Berlin analyses are often colder than others at T ≲ 205 K. European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) temperatures agreed better with other analyses in 1999/2000, after improvements in the assimilation system, than in 1995/1996. Temperature history case studies show substantial differences using Met Office, NCEP, REAN, ECMWF, and NASA Data Assimilation Office (DAO) analyses. In January 2000 (when a large cold region was centered in the polar vortex), all analyses gave qualitatively similar results. However, in February 2000 (a much warmer period) and in January and February 1996 (comparably cold to January 2000 but with the cold region near the polar vortex edge), distributions of “potential PSC lifetimes” and total time spent below a PSC formation threshold varied significantly between the analyses. Largest peaks in “PSC lifetime” distributions in January 2000 were at 4–6 and 11–14 days, while in 1996 they were at 1–3 days. Different meteorological conditions in comparably cold winters have a large impact on expectations for PSC formation and on the effects of discrepancies between different meteorological analyses. Met Office, NCEP, REAN, ECMWF, and DAO analyses are commonly used in modeling polar processes; the choice of analysis can strongly influence the results of such studies.