2011, 31(1): 34-43.
doi: 10.11728/cjss2011.01.034
Abstract:
Observations of COSMIC occultations which have high precision and high height-resolution from winter 2007 to spring 2008 are used to analyze the variability of the atmosphere between 10 and 60 km during the Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW), especially the features in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere. Results show that all of the temperature and wind fields and the residual circulation changed significantly during the SSW. According to the differences of the temperature before and during the major SSW, the latitude-altitude distributions of the temperature field could be divided into four parts by about 55ºN along latitude and by about 42\,km along altitude. At high latitudes, temperatures increased with a maximum warming of about 25 K in the lower stratosphere, while temperatures decreased with a maximum cooling of about 30 K in the upper stratosphere. At middle latitudes, temperatures cooled in the lower stratosphere while warming happened in the upper stratosphere by several K. During the SSW, both the zonal winds in the lower mesosphere and in the upper stratosphere changed nearly in the same way. Westerly winds became weaker and easterly winds strengthened in the north area of 45ºN, with a maximum increase up to 50\,m/s, while in the south area of 45ºN, westerly winds intensified and easterly winds weakened by a much smaller change of about 10\,m/s. From the last ten-day of January to the end of February, 2008, oscillations were observed in temperature and zonal wind fields with a period of about 12 days. The residual circulations reversed during the SSW, which suggested that directions of the transport of the atmospheric components also changed during the SSW.