Manabe, S., and J. D. Mahlman, 1976: Simulation of seasonal and interhemispheric variations in the stratospheric circulation. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 33 (11), 2185-2217.
Abstract: This paper describes the stratosphere as simulated by the time integration
of a global model of the atmosphere as developed at the Geophysical Fluid
Dynamics Laboratory of NOAA.
It is shown that the model is capable of simulating a number of the features
of the seasonal variation in the stratosphere. For example, it qualitatively
reproduces the seasonal reversals of zonal wind direction in the mid-stratosphere
between westerlies in winter and the zonal easterlies prevailing during
the summer season. In the mid-latitude region of the lower model stratosphere,
zonal mean temperature is highest in the winter when solar radiation is
weak. At the cold equatorial tropopause of the model, the seasonal variation
of temperature is also quite different from that which would be expected
from the seasonal variation of solar radiation. These results are in qualitative
agreement with the observed variation.
Attempts are made to identify the factors which are responsible for the
various aspects of the seasonal variation of the model stratosphere, based
upon detailed budget analyses of angular momentum, heat and eddy kinetic
energy. It is found that, with the exception of the high latitude regions,
the seasonal variation of temperature in the lower model stratosphere is
essentially controlled by dynamical effects rather than by the seasonal
variation of local heating due to solar radiation.
The stratosphere as simulated by the global model has large interhemispheric
asymmetries in the shape of the polar westerly vortex, the magnitudes and
the distributions of eddy kinetic energy, and the meridional circulation
in the winter hemisphere. Interhemispheric asymmetries in orography are
apparently responsible for the interhemispheric differences in the quasi-stationary
component of energy flux from the troposphere to the stratosphere of the
model, and thus account for many of the asymmetries in the stratospheric
circulation. In particular, the simulated stratospheric Aleutian anticyclone
is shown to be related to the presence of the strong quasi-stationary tropospheric
jet stream off the east coast of Asia.
Some of the important shortcomings of the model in simulating the stratosphere
include an exaggeration of the magnitudes of the various components of the
eddy kinetic energy budget at the top computational level (10 mb) of the
model and an overestimation of the intensity of the polar westerly vortex.
Also, the model fails to reproduce the mid-winter "sudden stratospheric
warming" phenomenon and the quasi-biennial wind reversal in the equatorial
stratosphere. It is suggested that the performance of the model at the top
level suffers from the coarseness in the vertical finite-difference resolution
and the lid boundary condition imposed at the top of the model atmosphere.