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Data assimilation schemes blend observational data, with limited coverage, with a short term forecast to produce an analysis, which is meant to be the best estimate of the current state of the atmosphere. Appropriately specifying observation error statistics is necessary to obtain an optimal analysis. Observation error can originate from instrument error as well as the error of representation. While representation error is most commonly associated with unresolved scales and processes, this term is often considered to include contributions from pre-processing or quality control and errors associated with the observation operator. With a focus on practical operational implementation, this chapter aims to define the components of observation error, discusses their sources and characteristics, and provides an overview of current methods for estimating observation error statistics. We highlight the implicit assumptions of these methods, as well as their shortcomings. We will detail current operational practice for diagnosing observation error and accounting for correlated observation error. Finally, we provide a practical methodology for using these diagnostics, as well as the associated innovation-based observation impact, to optimize the assimilation of meteor radar observations in the upper atmosphere.

A methodology is presented for objectively optimizing nonorographic gravity wave source parameters to minimize forecast error for target regions and forecast lead times. In this study, we employ a high-altitude version of the Navy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM-HA) to ascertain the forcing needed to minimize hindcast errors in the equatorial lower stratospheric zonal-mean zonal winds in order to improve forecasts of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) over seasonal time scales. Because subgrid-scale wave effects play a large role in driving the QBO, this method leverages the nonorographic gravity wave drag (GWD) parameterization scheme to provide the necessary forcing. To better constrain the GWD source parameters, we utilize ensembles of NAVGEM-HA hindcasts over the 2014–16 period with perturbed source parameters and develop a cost function to minimize errors in the equatorial lower stratosphere compared to analysis. Thus, we may determine the set of GWD source parameters that yields a forecast state that most closely agrees with observed QBO winds over each optimization time interval. Results show that the source momentum flux and phase speed spectrum width are the most important parameters. The seasonal evolution of optimal parameter value, specifically a robust semiannual periodicity in the source strength, is also revealed. Changes in optimal source parameters with increasing forecast lead time are seen, as the GWD parameterization takes on a more active role as QBO driver at longer forecast lengths. Implementation of a semiannually varying source function at the equator provides RMS error improvement in QBO winds over the default constant value.

Ongoing climate change in Earth’s middle and upper atmosphere will affect the rapidly expanding space and telecommunications sectors. Maintaining observations of this region is more crucial than ever.

We use the Specified Dynamics version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model Extended (SD-WACCMX) to model the descent of nitric oxide (NO) and other mesospheric tracers in the extended, elevated stratopause phase of the 2013 Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW). The dynamics are specified with a high altitude version of the Navy Global Environmental model (NAVGEM-HA). Consistent with our earlier published results, we find that using a high altitude meteorological analysis to nudge WACCMX allows for a realistic simulation of the descent of lower thermospheric nitric oxide down to the lower mesosphere, near 60 km. This is important because these simulations only included auroral electrons, and did not consider additional sources of NO from higher energy particles, for example, medium energy electron precipitation (> 30 keV). This suggests that the so-called energetic particle precipitation indirect effect (EPP-IE) can be accurately simulated, at least in years of low geomagnetic activity, such as 2013, without the need for additional NO production, provided the meteorology is accurately constrained. Despite the general success of WACCMX in simulating mesospheric NO, a detailed comparison of the WACCMX fields with the analyzed NAVGEM-HA H2O and satellite NO and H2O data from the Solar Occultation for Ice Experiment (SOFIE) and the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment-Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) reveals significant differences in the latitudinal and longitudinal distributions in the 45–55 km region. This stems from the tendency for WACCMX descent to maximize at sub-polar latitudes and while such sub-polar descent is seen in the NAVGEM-HA analysis, it is more transient than in the WACCMX simulation. These differences are linked to differences in the Transformed Eulerian Mean (TEM) circulation between NAVGEM-HA and WACCMX, most likely arising from small differences in how gravity wave forcing is represented. To attempt to compensate for the differing distributions of model vs. observed NO and to enable us to quantify the total amount of upper atmospheric NO delivered to the stratopause region, we use potential vorticity and equivalent latitude coordinates. Preliminary results suggest both model and observations are generally consistent with NO totals in the range of 0.1–0.25 gigamoles (GM).

Solar thermal (migrating) atmospheric tides play an important role in shaping the day-to-day and seasonal variability of the Mesosphere-Lower-Thermosphere (MLT) region. Due the planetary scale of the migrating tides, observations have, however, remained sparse. This study uses meteor-echo wind measurements from a longitudinal array of SuperDARN HF-radars to isolate the amplitude and phase of the migrating diurnal, semidiurnal, and terdiurnal tide. The array of SuperDARN radars, covering nearly 180 degrees longitude at 60±5 degrees North, provide hourly horizontal wind measurements at approximately 95km altitude. The migrating components of the tides are isolated by fitting wave surfaces in space and time. The results are compared with global synoptic wind analyses from the high-altitude version of the Navy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM-HA) to validate the method. The tides are also compared against those measured at a single station by the Trondheim (66N, 10E) meteor radar. We will present the method, a comparison between (migrating) tidal components in SuperDARN, NAVGEM-HA and the Trondheim meteor radar between 2014 and 2015, and migrating tide climatologies based on 21 years of SuperDARN data.

The lower atmosphere contributes significantly to the day-to-day variability of the ionosphere, especially during solar minimum conditions. Ionosphere/atmosphere model simulations that incorporate meteorology from data assimilation analysis products can be critically important for elucidating the physical processes that have substantial impact on ionospheric weather. In this study, the NCAR Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, extended version with specified dynamics (SD-WACCM-X) is coupled with an ionospheric model (Sami3 is Another Model of the Ionosphere) to study day-to-day variability in the ionosphere during January 2010. Lower atmospheric weather patterns are introduced into the SAMI3/SD-WACCM-X simulations using the 6-h Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System-Advanced Level Physics High Altitude (NOGAPS-ALPHA) data assimilation products. The same time period is simulated using the new atmospheric forecast model, the High Altitude Navy Global Environmental Model (HA-NAVGEM), a hybrid 4D-Var prototype data assimilation with the ability to produce meteorological fields at a 3-h cadence. Our study shows that forcing SD-WACCM-X with HA-NAVGEM better resolves the semidiurnal tides and introduces more day-to-day variability into the ionosphere than forcing with NOGAPS-ALPHA. The SAMI3/SD-WACCM-X/HA-NAVGEM simulation also more accurately captures the longitudinal variability associated with non-migrating tides in the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) region as compared to total electron content (TEC) maps derived from GPS data. Both the TEC maps and the SAMI3/SD-WACCM-X/HA-NAVGEM simulation show an enhancement in TEC over South America during 17–21 January 2010, which coincides with the commencement of a stratospheric warming event on 19 January 2010. Analysis of the SAMI3/SD-WACCM-X/HA-NAVGEM simulations indicates non-migrating tides (including DW4, DE2 and SW5) played a role during 17–21 January in shifting the phase of the wave-3 pattern in the ionosphere on these days. Constructive interference of wave-3 and wave-4 patterns in the E × B drifts contributed to the enhanced TEC in the South American longitude sector. The results of the study highlight the importance of high fidelity meteorology in understanding the day-to-day variability of the ionosphere.

There is currently an ambiguity in what controls polar mesospheric cloud (PMC) periodicities near 83 km altitude. This is primarily because satellite and ground-based data sets cannot resolve global mesospheric temperature variability over the diurnal cycle. To address this limitation, we employ a global meteorological analysis and forecast system that assimilates mesospheric satellite data with two significant advances. The first is that we use output at a more rapid one hourly cadence, allowing for a quantitative description of diurnal (24 h), semidiurnal (12 h), and terdiurnal oscillations. The second is that the output drives a simple PMC parameterization which depends only on the local temperature, pressure, and water vapor concentrations. Our study focuses on results from July 2009 in the Northern Hemisphere and January 2008 in the Southern Hemisphere. We find that the 24 h migrating temperature tide as well as the 12 h and 24 h nonmigrating tides dominate northern PMC oscillations whereas the 12 h and 24 h nonmigrating tides dominate southern oscillations. Monthly averaged amplitudes for each of these components are generally 2–6 K with the larger amplitudes at lower PMC latitudes (50°). The 2 day and 5 day planetary waves also contribute in both hemispheres, with monthly averaged amplitudes from 1 to 3 K although these amplitudes can be as high as 4–6 K on some days. Over length scales of ~1000 km and timescales of ~1 week, we find that local temperature oscillations adequately describe midlatitude PMC observations.

Context. The mirror tracking system of the Canadian Automated Meteor Observatory (CAMO) can track meteors in real time, providing an effective angular resolution of 1 arc second and a temporal resolution of 100 frames per second. Aims. We describe the upgraded hardware and give details of the data calibration and reduction pipeline. We investigate the influence of meteor morphology on radiant and velocity measurement precision, and use direct observations of meteoroid fragmentation to constrain their compressive strengths. Methods. On July 21, 2017, CAMO observed a ~4 second meteor on a JFC orbit. It had a shallow entry angle ~8 deg and 12 fragments were visible in the narrow-field video. The event was manually reduced and the exact moment of fragmentation was determined. The aerodynamic ram pressure at the moment of fragmentation was used as a proxy for compressive strength, and strengths of an additional 19 fragmenting meteoroids were measured in the same way. The uncertainty in the atmosphere mass density was estimated to be +/-25% using NAVGEM-HA data. Results. We find that meteor trajectory accuracy significantly depends on meteor morphology. The CAMO radiant and initial velocity precision for non-fragmenting meteors with short wakes is ~0.5' and 1 m/s, while that for meteors with fragments or long wakes is similar to non-tracking, moderate field of view optical systems (5', ~50 m/s). Measured compressive strengths of 20 fragmenting meteoroids (with less precise radiants due to their morphology) was in the range of 1-4 kPa, which is in excellent accord with Rosetta in-situ measurements of 67P. Fragmentation type and strength do not appear to be dependent on orbit. The mass index of the 12 fragments in the July 21 meteoroid was very high (s = 2.8), indicating possible progressive fragmentation., Comment: Accepted for publication in Icarus

Recent studies have shown that day-to-day variability in thermospheric winds (100–300 km altitude) driven by meteorological variability from below affects ionospheric E and lower F regions, highlighting the need for accurate, continuous specification of day-to-day variability throughout the entire atmosphere for geospace weather prediction systems. To better understand the nature of forcing from below on the coupled thermosphere/ionosphere system, this study uses the Specified Dynamics Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model eXtended (SD-WACCM-X) to quantify how the meteorology of the underlying atmosphere impacts the thermosphere. For this study, global meteorological specifications are produced by a high-altitude version of the Navy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM-HA), which assimilates standard meteorological observations from the surface through the lower atmosphere, and satellite-based observations of temperature and constituents in middle atmosphere (MA) region 10–90 km altitude. Two SD-WACCM-X simulations for the January–February 2013 period are performed using NAVGEM-HA specifications produced with and without assimilation of MA observations. Results show that the availability of MA observations strongly constrains the modeled spectrum of planetary scale waves (zonal wavenumbers 1–3) in the thermosphere. Specifically, the amplitudes of the solar non-migrating DE3 tide and westward quasi-two day wave (Q2DW) are nearly twice as large in SD-WACCM-X simulations without MA observations compared to simulations with MA observations. Model diagnostics show that these differences are related to non-linear wave-wave interactions impacting the DE3 mode and to sources of baroclinic/barotropic instability near the summer mesospheric easterly jet impacting the Q2DW. This study highlights the importance of MA observations for constraining whole atmosphere models needed for next-generation space weather prediction capabilities.

We use data from two NASA satellites, the Thermosphere Ionosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) and the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellites, in conjunction with model simulations from the thermosphere-ionosphere-mesosphere-electrodynamics general circulation model (TIME-GCM) to elucidate the key dynamical and chemical factors governing the abundance and diurnal variation of lower thermospheric nitric oxide (NO) at near-solar minimum conditions and low latitudes. This analysis was enabled by the recent orbital precession of the AIM satellite which caused the solar occultation pattern measured by the Solar Occultation for Ice Experiment (SOFIE) to migrate down to low and mid-latitudes for specific periods of time. We use a month of NO data collected in January 2017 to compare with two versions of the TIME-GCM; one is driven solely by climatological tides and analysis-derived planetary waves at the lower boundary and is free running at all other altitudes, and the other is constrained by a high-altitude analysis from the Navy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM) up to the mesopause. We also compare SOFIE data with a NO climatology from the nitric oxide empirical model (NOEM). Both SOFIE and NOEM yield peak NO abundances of around 4 x 10(7) cm(-3); however, the SOFIE profile peaks about 6-8 km lower than NOEM. We show that this difference is likely a local time effect, with SOFIE being a dawn measurement and NOEM representing late morning and/or near noon. The constrained version of TIME-GCM exhibits a low-altitude dawn peak, while the model that is forced solely at the lower boundary and free running above does not. We attribute this difference to a phase change in the semi-diurnal tide in the NAVGEM-constrained model, causing the descent of high NO mixing ratio air near dawn. This phase difference between the two models arises due to differences in the mesospheric zonal mean zonal winds. Regarding the absolute NO abundance, all versions of the TIME-GCM overestimate this. Tuning the model to yield calculated atomic oxygen in agreement with TIMED data helps but is insufficient. Furthermore, the TIME-GCM underestimates the electron density (Ne) as compared with the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) empirical model. This suggests a potential conflict with the requirements of NO modeling and Ne modeling, since one solution typically used to increase model Ne is to increase the solar soft X-ray flux, which would, in this case, worsen the NO model-data discrepancy. NASA AIM Small Explorer program [S50029G]; NASA/TIMED SABER project [NNG17PX04I]; Office of Naval Research BSION program [N0001417WX00579]; NASA Heliophysics Supporting Research (HSR) program [NNH17AE69I]; NRL Karle Fellowship; NASANational Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) [X13AF77G, NNX16AG64G, NNH13AV95I]; National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation (NSF) We acknowledge support from the NASA AIM Small Explorer program (through the Interagency Purchase Request S50029G to NRL), the NASA/TIMED SABER project (through Interagency Purchase Request NNG17PX04I to NRL) and the Office of Naval Research BSION program, award number N0001417WX00579. Additionally, Douglas P. Drob acknowledges support from the NASA Heliophysics Supporting Research (HSR) program through interagency agreement NNH17AE69I to NRL. This work was performed while McArthur Jones Jr. held an NRL Karle Fellowship. John P. McCormack acknowledges support from NASA grant NNH13AV95I. Astrid Maute is supported by NASA grants X13AF77G and NNX16AG64G. Computational resources for this work were provided by the U.S. Department of Defense (Dod) High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP). We thank Stan Solomon of the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) for helpful discussion concerning nitric oxide chemistry and the internal reviewer at HAO for useful comments. NCAR is supported by the National Science Foundation.

Many operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems now extend into the stratosphere and are beginning to be used to generate forecasts beyond conventional 5–10-day periods out to seasonal time scales. Past observational and modeling studies have shown that the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) in equatorial stratospheric winds can play an important role in stratosphere–troposphere dynamical coupling over these longer time scales. Consequently, stratosphere-resolving NWP models used to generate seasonal forecasts should contain the necessary physics to generate and maintain the QBO. This study describes several key modifications that were necessary to produce a QBO in a high-altitude NWP model, which include an increase in model vertical resolution, implementation of a computationally efficient stochastic gravity wave drag parameterization, and reductions in the amount of horizontal and vertical diffusion in the stratosphere. Results from a 10-yr free-running model simulation with these modifications show that the westerly QBO phase produces lower temperatures and stronger westerly flow in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) winter polar stratosphere compared to the easterly QBO phase. Ensembles of 120-day simulations over the December–March period show that these modifications replace persistent easterly flow in the equatorial lower stratosphere with a more realistic transition from easterly to westerly flow. The resulting changes in planetary wave propagation produce a statistically significant response in the dynamics of the NH extratropical stratosphere consistent with the Holton–Tan relationship. The westerly shift in equatorial winds also produces a significant response in the NH extratropical troposphere, where the sea level pressure differences in winter resemble the positive phase of the northern annular mode.

The descent of the westerly phase of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) in equatorial stratospheric zonal wind was interrupted by the development of easterlies near 40 hPa (~23 km altitude) in early 2016. We use tropical meteorological analyses of wind and temperature to describe in detail the special circumstances by which equatorward-propagating planetary waves produced this unprecedented disruption in the QBO. Our findings show that the subtropical easterly jet in the winter lower stratosphere during the 2015-2016 winter was anomalously weak owing to (1) the timing of the QBO relative to the annual cycle and (2) an extreme El Nino event. The weak jet allowed an unusually large flux of westward momentum to propagate from the extratropical Northern Hemisphere to the equator near the 40 hPa level. Consequently, the QBO westerlies at that level experienced sustained easterly acceleration from extratropical wave breaking, leading to the observed wind reversal.

On February 13, 2013, the US Navy's weather forecast system reached a milestone when the NAVy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM) replaced the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) for operational global weather prediction. The new operational system NAVGEM 1.1 combines a semi-Lagrangian/semi-implicit dynamical core together with advanced parameterizations of subgrid-scale moist processes, convection, ozone, and radiation. The NAVGEM dynamical core allows for much higher spatial resolutions without the need for the small time steps that would be necessary in NOGAPS. The increased computational efficiency is expected to enable significant increases in resolution in future NAVGEM releases. Model physics improvements in the NAVGEM 1.1 transition include representations of cloud liquid water, cloud ice water, and ozone as fully predicted constituents. Following successful testing of a new mass flux scheme, a second transition to NAVGEM 1.2 occurred on November 6, 2013. Addition of this mass flux parameterization to the eddy diffusion vertical mixing parameterization resulted in a reduction of the cold temperature bias of the lower troposphere over ocean and further increased the forecast skill of NAVGEM.

This study uses global synoptic meteorological fields from a high-altitude data assimilation system to investigate the spatial and temporal characteristics of the quasi-2 day wave (Q2DW) and migrating diurnal tide during the Northern Hemisphere summers of 2007, 2008, and 2009. By applying a 2-dimensional fast Fourier transform to meridional wind and temperature fields, we are able to identify Q2DW source regions and to diagnose propagation of Q2DW activity into the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere. We find that Q2DW is comprised primarily of westward propagating zonal wavenumber 3 and wavenumber 4 components that originate from within baroclinically unstable regions along the equatorward flank of the summer midlatitude easterly jet. Amplitude variations of wavenumbers 3 and 4 tend to be anti-correlated throughout the summer, with wavenumber 3 maximizing in July and wavenumber 4 maximizing in late June and early August. Monthly mean Q2DW amplitudes between 30 50N latitude are largest when diurnal tidal amplitudes are smallest and vice versa. However, there is no evidence of any rapid amplification of the Q2DW via nonlinear interaction with the diurnal tide. Instead, variations of Q2DW amplitudes during July are closely linked to variations in the strength and location of the easterly jet core from one summer to the next, with a stronger jet producing larger Q2DW amplitudes. Linear instability model calculations based on the assimilated wind fields find fast growing zonal wavenumber 3 and 4 modes with periods near 2 days in the vicinity of the easterly jet.

We have explored the sensitivity of the thermosphere and ionosphere to dynamical forcing from altitudes near the mesopause (~95 km). We performed five simulations, all for the year 2009, with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)/Thermosphere Ionosphere Electrodynamics General Circulation Model (TIEGCM). Two simulations were driven with the NCAR Global Scale Wind Model, and three used output from the Advanced Level Physics High Altitude (ALPHA) version of the Navy's Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS). Use of NOGAPS-ALPHA allows for realistic meteorological variability from the lower atmosphere to propagate up into the TIEGCM, including a rich spectrum of nonmigrating tides. We find that the additional vertical transport from these tides causes a significant reduction in the calculated peak electron density of the ionospheric F2 layer (NmF2). The mechanism for this effect is the enhanced downward transport of atomic oxygen to the base of the thermosphere. In turn, this yields a greater relative abundance of N2 and hence enhanced recombination of ions and electrons. To get improved agreement with observed electron densities, we must reduce (Kzz) by a factor of 5. However, even with lower Kzz, our calculation still underestimates the NmF2 compared with radio occultation observations by the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate satellite system. This underestimate of NmF2 may be linked to an overestimate of the nonmigrating tides in the coupled TIEGCM-NOGAPS calculations or to uncertainties in the bottom boundary for atomic oxygen in the TIEGCM.

High-altitude meteorological analyses are used to study the interannual variability of mesospheric weather in the Southern extratropics over five recent January's (2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2010). Two features are apparent. First, there is significant variability in the quasi 2 day wave (Q2DW) with the largest amplitudes in January 2006 and also the last half of January 2005. Second, these periods coincide with high-latitude temperature enhancements of 8–12 K. Previous studies have linked summer mesospheric warmings to interhemispheric coupling (IHC); however, the observed temperature and zonal wind anomalies do not agree with the predictions of IHC. Rather it appears that the westward momentum forcing from these Q2DW enhancements counteracts the gravity wave drag forcing which normally produces the cold summer mesopause. Since these temperature increases have been linked to Polar Mesospheric Cloud (PMC) disappearance, the present study supports the suggestion that the Q2DW may be an important factor governing PMC variability.

Past investigations have documented large divergent wind anomalies in stratospheric reanalyses over steep terrain, which were attributed to discretization errors produced by the terrain-following (sigma) vertical coordinate in the forecast model. However, forecasting experiments have reported negligible differences in skill between sigma- and hybrid-coordinate models. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that discretization errors in the forecast model yield significant stratospheric analysis errors, but insignificant stratospheric forecast errors. The authors reexamine this issue by performing two forecast-assimilation experiments that are identical except for the vertical coordinate: one uses a sigma coordinate and the other uses a hybrid coordinate. The sigma-coordinate analyses exhibit large divergent wind anomalies over terrain that extend from the surface to the model top and distort explicitly resolved orographic gravity waves. Above the tropopause, divergent wind errors are suppressed by an order of magnitude or more in the hybrid-coordinate analyses. Over a 3-month period, stratospheric skill scores in the hybrid experiment show statistically significant improvements relative to the sigma experiment. Previous studies, which found no such differences, all used forecasts initialized from a common archived analysis. The results show that the dominant pathway for error growth and net skill impacts is via 0–9-h forecast backgrounds cycling successively through the data assimilation phase without significant observational correction. The skill impacts noted here should further motivate weather and climate models to adopt a hybrid coordinate with the best error suppression characteristics for a given modeling application.

We present a study of horizontal winds in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) during the boreal winters of 2009–2010 and 2012–2013 produced with a new high-altitude numerical weather prediction (NWP) system. This system is based on a modified version of the Navy Global Environmental Model (NAVGEM) with an extended vertical domain up to ∼116 km altitude coupled with a hybrid four-dimensional variational (4DVAR) data assimilation system that assimilates both standard operational meteorological observations in the troposphere and satellite-based observations of temperature, ozone and water vapor in the stratosphere and mesosphere. NAVGEM-based MLT analyzed winds are validated using independent meteor radar wind observations from nine different sites ranging from 69°N–67°S latitude. Time-averaged NAVGEM zonal and meridional wind profiles between 75 and 95 km altitude show good qualitative and quantitative agreement with corresponding meteor radar wind profiles. Wavelet analysis finds that the 3-hourly NAVGEM and 1-hourly radar winds both exhibit semi-diurnal, diurnal, and quasi-diurnal variations whose vertical profiles of amplitude and phase are also in good agreement. Wavelet analysis also reveals common time-frequency behavior in both NAVGEM and radar winds throughout the Northern extratropics around the times of major stratospheric sudden warmings (SSWs) in January 2010 and January 2013, with a reduction in semi-diurnal amplitudes beginning around the time of a mesospheric wind reversal at 60°N that precedes the SSW, followed by an amplification of semi-diurnal amplitudes that peaks 10–14 days following the onset of the mesospheric wind reversal. The initial results presented in this study demonstrate that the wind analyses produced by the high-altitude NAVGEM system accurately capture key features in the observed MLT winds during these two boreal winter periods. © 2016. This is the authors’ accepted and refereed manuscript to the article. Locked until 24.12.2018 due to copyright restrictions. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

[1] A middle atmosphere general circulation model is used to examine the effects of zonally asymmetric ozone (ZAO) on the Northern Hemisphere planetary waveguide (PWG) during winter (December–February). The morphology of the PWG is measured by a refractive index, Eliassen-Palm flux vectors, the latitude of the subtropical zero wind line, and the latitude of the subtropical jet. ZAO causes the PWG to contract meridionally in the upper stratosphere, expand meridionally in the lower stratosphere, and expand vertically in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere. The ZAO-induced changes in the PWG are the result of increased upward and poleward flux of planetary wave activity into the extratropical stratosphere and lower mesosphere. These changes cause an increase in the Eliassen-Palm flux convergence at high latitudes, which produces a warmer and weaker stratospheric polar vortex and an increase in the frequency of stratospheric sudden warmings. The ability of ZAO to alter the flux of planetary wave activity into the polar vortex has important implications for accurately modeling wave-modulated and wave-driven phenomena in the middle atmosphere, including the 11-year solar cycle, stratospheric sudden warmings, and the phase of the Northern Hemisphere annular mode.

A global numerical weather prediction system is extended to the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) and used to assimilate high-altitude satellite measurements of temperature, water vapor and ozone from MLS and SABER during May–July 2007. Assimilated temperature and humidity from 100 to 0.001 hPa show minimal biases compared to satellite data and existing analysis fields. Saturation ratios derived diagnostically from these assimilated temperature and water vapor fields at PMC altitudes and latitudes compare well with seasonal variations in PMC frequency measured from the aeronomy of ice in the mesosphere (AIM) satellite. Synoptic maps of these diagnostic saturation ratios correlate geographically with three independent transient mesospheric cloud events observed at midlatitudes by SHIMMER on STPSat-1 and by ground observers during June 2007. Assimilated temperatures and winds reveal broadly realistic amplitudes of the quasi 5-day wave and migrating tides as a function of latitude and height. For example, analyzed winds capture the dominant semidiurnal MLT wind patterns at 55°N in June 2007 measured independently by a meteor radar. The 5-day wave and migrating diurnal tide also modulate water vapor mixing ratios in the polar summer MLT. Possible origins of this variability are discussed.

This paper describes CHEM2D-H2O, a new parameterization of H2O photochemical production and loss based on the CHEM2D photochemical-transport model of the middle atmosphere. This parameterization accounts for the altitude, latitude, and seasonal variations in the photochemical sources and sinks of water vapor over the pressure region from 100–0.001 hPa (~16–90 km altitude). A series of free-running NOGAPS-ALPHA forecast model simulations offers a preliminary assessment of CHEM2D-H2O performance over the June 2007 period. Results indicate that the CHEM2D-H2O parameterization improves global 10-day forecasts of upper mesospheric water vapor compared to forecasts using an existing one-dimensional (altitude only) parameterization. Most of the improvement is seen at high winter latitudes where the one-dimensional parameterization specifies photolytic H2O loss year round despite the lack of sunlight in winter. The new CHEM2D-H2O parameterization should provide a better representation of the downwelling of dry mesospheric air into the stratospheric polar vortex in operational analyses that do not assimilate middle atmospheric H2O measurements.

The forecast model and three-dimensional variational data assimilation components of the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) have each been extended into the upper stratosphere and mesosphere to form an Advanced Level Physics High Altitude (ALPHA) version of NOGAPS extending to ~100 km. This NOGAPS-ALPHA NWP prototype is used to assimilate stratospheric and mesospheric temperature data from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instruments. A 60-day analysis period in January and February 2006, was chosen that includes a well documented stratospheric sudden warming. SABER and MLS temperatures indicate that the SSW caused the polar winter stratopause at ~40 km to disappear, then reform at ~80 km altitude and slowly descend during February. The NOGAPS-ALPHA analysis reproduces this observed stratospheric and mesospheric temperature structure, as well as realistic evolution of zonal winds, residual velocities, and Eliassen-Palm fluxes that aid interpretation of the vertically deep circulation and eddy flux anomalies that developed in response to this wave-breaking event. The observation minus forecast (O-F) standard deviations for MLS and SABER are ~2 K in the mid-stratosphere and increase monotonically to about 6 K in the upper mesosphere. Increasing O-F standard deviations in the mesosphere are expected due to increasing instrument error and increasing geophysical variance at small spatial scales in the forecast model. In the mid/high latitude winter regions, 10-day forecast skill is improved throughout the upper stratosphere and mesosphere when the model is initialized using the high-altitude analysis based on assimilation of both SABER and MLS data.

The innovations or observation minus forecast (O–F) residuals produced by a data assimilation system provide a convenient metric of evaluating global analyses. In this study, O–F statistics from the Global Ozone Assimilation Testing System (GOATS) are used to examine how ozone assimilation products and their associated O–F statistics depend on input data biases and ozone photochemistry parameterizations (OPP). All the GOATS results shown are based on a 6-h forecast and analysis cycle using observations from SBUV/2 (Solar Backscatter UltraViolet instrument-2) during September–October 2002. Results show that zonal mean ozone analyses are more independent of observation biases and drifts when using an OPP, while the mean ozone O–Fs are more sensitive to observation drifts when using an OPP. In addition, SD O–Fs (standard deviations) are reduced in the upper stratosphere when using an OPP due to a reduction of forecast model noise and to increased covariance between the forecast model and the observations. Experiments that changed the OPP reference state to match the observations by using an "adaptive" OPP scheme reduced the mean ozone O–Fs at the expense of zonal mean ozone analyses being more susceptible to data biases and drifts. Additional experiments showed that the upper boundary of the ozone DAS can affect the quality of the ozone analysis and therefore should be placed well above (at least a scale height) the region of interest.

This paper evaluates the performance of various linear ozone photochemistry parametrizations using the stratosphere-troposphere data assimilation system of the Met Office. A set of experiments were run for the period 23 September 2003 to 5 November 2003 using the Cariolle (v1.0 and v2.1), LINOZ and Chem2D-OPP (v0.1 and v2.1) parametrizations. All operational meteorological observations were assimilated, together with ozone retrievals from the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS). Experiments were validated against independent data from the Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) and ozonesondes. Additionally, a simple offline method for comparing the parametrizations is introduced. It is shown that in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere, outside the polar night, ozone analyses are controlled by the photochemistry parametrizations and not by the assimilated observations. The most important factor in getting good results at these levels is to pay attention to the ozone and temperature climatologies in the parametrizations. There should be no discrepancies between the climatologies and the assimilated observations or the model, but there is also a competing demand that the climatologies be objectively accurate in themselves. Conversely, in the lower stratosphere outside regions of heterogeneous ozone depletion, the ozone analyses are dominated by observational increments and the photochemistry parametrizations have little influence. We investigate a number of known problems in LINOZ and Cariolle v1.0 in more detail than previously, and we find discrepancies in Cariolle v2.1 and Chem2D-OPP v2.1, which are demonstrated to have been removed in the latest available versions (v2.8 and v2.6 respectively). In general, however, all the parametrizations work well through much of the stratosphere, helped by the presence of good quality assimilated MIPAS observations.

The new CHEM2D-Ozone Photochemistry Parameterization (CHEM2D-OPP) for high-altitude numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems and climate models specifies the net ozone photochemical tendency and its sensitivity to changes in ozone mixing ratio, temperature and overhead ozone column based on calculations from the CHEM2D interactive middle atmospheric photochemical transport model. We evaluate CHEM2D-OPP performance using both short-term (6-day) and long-term (1-year) stratospheric ozone simulations with the prototype high-altitude NOGAPS-ALPHA forecast model. An inter-comparison of NOGAPS-ALPHA 6-day ozone hindcasts for 7 February 2005 with ozone photochemistry parameterizations currently used in operational NWP systems shows that CHEM2D-OPP yields the best overall agreement with both individual Aura Microwave Limb Sounder ozone profile measurements and independent hemispheric (10°–90° N) ozone analysis fields. A 1-year free-running NOGAPS-ALPHA simulation using CHEM2D-OPP produces a realistic seasonal cycle in zonal mean ozone throughout the stratosphere. We find that the combination of a model cold temperature bias at high latitudes in winter and a warm bias in the CHEM2D-OPP temperature climatology can degrade the performance of the linearized ozone photochemistry parameterization over seasonal time scales despite the fact that the parameterized temperature dependence is weak in these regions.

Two-dimensional radiance maps from Channel 9 (~60–90 hPa) of the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A), acquired over southern Scandinavia on 14 January 2003, show plane-wave-like oscillations with a wavelength λh of ~400–500 km and peak brightness temperature amplitudes of up to 0.9 K. The wave-like pattern is observed in AMSU-A radiances from 8 overpasses of this region by 4 different satellites, revealing a growth in the disturbance amplitude from 00:00 UTC to 12:00 UTC and a change in its horizontal structure between 12:00 UTC and 20:00 UTC. Forecast and hindcast runs for 14 January 2003 using high-resolution global and regional numerical weather prediction (NWP) models generate a lower stratospheric mountain wave over southern Scandinavia with peak 90 hPa temperature amplitudes of ~5–7 K at 12:00 UTC and a similar horizontal wavelength, packet width, phase structure and time evolution to the disturbance observed in AMSU-A radiances. The wave's vertical wavelength is ~12 km. These NWP fields are validated against radiosonde wind and temperature profiles and airborne lidar profiles of temperature and aerosol backscatter ratios acquired from the NASA DC-8 during the second SAGE III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE II). Both the amplitude and phase of the stratospheric mountain wave in the various NWP fields agree well with localized perturbation features in these suborbital measurements. In particular, we show that this wave formed the type II polar stratospheric clouds measured by the DC-8 lidar. To compare directly with the AMSU-A data, we convert these validated NWP temperature fields into swath-scanned brightness temperatures using three-dimensional Channel 9 weighting functions and the actual AMSU-A scan patterns from each of the 8 overpasses of this region. These NWP-based brightness temperatures contain two-dimensional oscillations due to this resolved stratospheric mountain wave that have an amplitude, wavelength, horizontal structure and time evolution that closely match those observed in the AMSU-A data. These comparisons not only verify gravity wave detection and horizontal imaging capabilities for AMSU-A Channel 9, but provide an absolute validation of the anticipated radiance signals for a given three-dimensional gravity wave, based on the modeling of Eckermann and Wu (2006).

A high-altitude version of the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) spectral forecast model is used to simulate the unusual September 2002 Southern Hemisphere stratospheric major warming. Designated as NOGAPS-Advanced Level Physics and High Altitude (NOGAPS-ALPHA), this model extends from the surface to 0.005 hPa (∼85 km altitude) and includes modifications to multiple components of the operational NOGAPS system, including a new radiative heating scheme, middle-atmosphere gravity wave drag parameterizations, hybrid vertical coordinate, upper-level meteorological initialization, and radiatively active prognostic ozone with parameterized photochemistry. NOGAPS-ALPHA forecasts (hindcasts) out to 6 days capture the main features of the major warming, such as the zonal mean wind reversal, planetary-scale wave amplification, large upward Eliassen–Palm (EP) fluxes, and splitting of the polar vortex in the middle stratosphere. Forecasts beyond 6 days have reduced upward EP flux in the lower stratosphere, reduced amplitude of zonal wavenumbers 2 and 3, and a middle stratospheric vortex that does not split. Three-dimensional EP-flux diagnostics in the troposphere reveal that the longer forecasts underestimate upward-propagating planetary wave energy emanating from a significant blocking pattern over the South Atlantic that played a large role in forcing the major warming. Forecasts of less than 6 days are initialized with the blocking in place, and therefore are not required to predict the blocking onset. For a more thorough skill assessment, NOGAPS-ALPHA forecasts over 3 weeks during September–October 2002 are compared with operational NOGAPS 5-day forecasts made at the time. NOGAPS-ALPHA forecasts initialized with 2002 operational NOGAPS analyses show a modest improvement in skill over the NOGAPS operational forecasts. An additional, larger improvement is obtained when NOGAPS-ALPHA is initialized with reanalyzed 2002 fields produced with the currently operational (as of October 2003) Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Atmospheric Variational Data Assimilation System (NAVDAS). Thus the combination of higher model top, better physical parameterizations, and better initial conditions all yield improved forecasting skill over the NOGAPS forecasts issued operationally at the time.

This paper presents three-dimensional prognostic O3 simulations with parameterized gas-phase photochemistry from the new NOGAPS-ALPHA middle atmosphere forecast model. We compare 5-day NOGAPS-ALPHA hindcasts of stratospheric O3 with satellite and DC-8 aircraft measurements for two cases during the SOLVE II campaign: (1) the cold, isolated vortex during 11-16 January 2003; and (2) the rapidly developing stratospheric warming of 17-22 January 2003. In the first case we test three different photochemistry parameterizations. NOGAPS-ALPHA O3 simulations using the NRL-CHEM2D parameterization give the best agreement with SAGE III and POAM III profile measurements. 5-day NOGAPS-ALPHA hindcasts of polar O3 initialized with the NASA GEOS4 analyses produce better agreement with observations than do the operational ECMWF O3 forecasts of case 1. For case 2, both NOGAPS-ALPHA and ECMWF 114-h forecasts of the split vortex structure in lower stratospheric O3 on 21 January 2003 show comparable skill. Updated ECMWF O3 forecasts of this event at hour 42 display marked improvement from the 114-h forecast; corresponding updated 42-hour NOGAPS-ALPHA prognostic O3 fields initialized with the GEOS4 analyses do not improve significantly. When NOGAPS-ALPHA prognostic O3 is initialized with the higher resolution ECMWF O3 analyses, the NOGAPS-ALPHA 42-hour lower stratospheric O3 fields closely match the operational 42-hour ECMWF O3 forecast of the 21 January event. We find that stratospheric O3 forecasts at high latitudes in winter can depend on both model initial conditions and the treatment of photochemistry over periods of 1-5 days. Overall, these results show that the new O3 initialization, photochemistry parameterization, and spectral transport in the NOGAPS-ALPHA NWP model can provide reliable short-range stratospheric O3 forecasts during Arctic winter.

Extreme ozone minima represent localized and temporally brief (several days) reductions in column ozone amounts below some chosen absolute level. Although such minima at middle to high northern latitudes are known to be primarily dynamical in origin, a remaining issue is whether heterogeneous chemical loss processes may also contribute significantly to their formation. A case in point is the record low 165 Dobson units (DU) minimum occurring on November 30, 1999, when temperatures near 30 hPa at the location of the minimum were lower than the threshold for the formation of type I polar stratospheric clouds (PSC). An examination of Polar Ozone and Aerosol Measurement III data for times surrounding the event shows that PSCs were indeed present in the vicinity where the ozone minimum was observed. However, archived data show that a similar extreme minimum of 167 DU with characteristics comparable to those of the November 30, 1999, minimum occurred on October 30, 1985, when no PSCs were present. An ensemble of 71 extreme ozone minima with amplitudes under 215 DU exhibit a nearly linear relationship between ozone minimum deviations from the zonal mean and corresponding 30-hPa temperature deviations. Such a relationship is predicted by analytic transport models which assume that vertical motions (i.e., upwelling) are responsible for the ozone minima. Temperature deviations near 30-hPa were unusually large for both the November 30, 1999, and the October 30, 1985, events, implying unusually rapid upward transport for these events. All 71 minima occur in regions where deviations from the zonal mean of 330 K potential vorticity are negative, implying an additional contribution to their formation by quasi-horizontal transport. The timescale for column ozone reductions during extreme ozone minima events is also determined and found to be at least 20 times more rapid than expected from known chemical loss processes. The data are therefore most consistent with a purely dynamical origin for extreme ozone minima in general and the November 30, 1999, event in particular. As was shown by earlier work, the basic dynamical process involves a combination of isentropic transport of ozone-poor air from the tropical upper troposphere and rapid upwelling over upper tropospheric anticyclonic disturbances resulting from poleward Rossby wave breaking events.

Based on 19 years (1979–1998) of NCEP/NCAR reanalyses data and potential vorticity (PV) area diagnostics, we found that in the southern hemisphere (SH) the polar vortex has lasted about two weeks longer in the 1990s than in the early 1980s and the northern hemisphere (NH) polar vortex has lasted four weeks longer. The SH vortex persisted within the layer (12–22 km) with almost complete ozone loss, but did not persist at higher altitudes where ozone was not depleted. However, the NH vortex persisted in a broader vertical range not limited to the ozone-depletion layer. We show that wave activity has weakened in recent years in the NH, but not in the SH. The springtime Antarctic ozone hole seems to be the main cause for the SH polar vortex persistence, while the cause for the NH vortex persistence involves changes in polar ozone as well as changes in dynamics.

The source of increased water vapor mixing ra- tios over the central and eastern tropical Pacic region during the 1992 El Ni~ no event is examined using measurements of upper tropospheric water vapor provided by the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on board the Upper Atmosphere Re- search Satellite. Horizontal winds on isentropic surfaces are combined with ISCCP cloud information to provide back- trajectory calculations free of high clouds. These calculations show that the water vapor mixing ratio of an air parcel in the cloud-free regions of the eastern Pacic decreases to approxi- mately one-half of its original value within the rst 30 hours after encountering deep convection. This analysis also nds a larger number of air parcels encountering deep convection within 30 hours of observation, and therefore having higher mixing ratios, in March-April 1992 compared to March-April 1994. Hence, increased deep convection over the equatorial central and eastern Pacic in 1992 contributed to the moist- ening of the downstream tropical upper troposphere.

Quasi-stationary planetary waves induce zonal asymmetries in wintertime extratropical total ozone fields with typical magnitudes of 30 to 60 Dobson Units. Year-to-year changes in the zonally asymmetric component of monthly mean total ozone fields are examined using both the Nimbus 7 TOMS record (1979 - 1993) and the combined Nimbus 7, NOAA II, and NOAA 9 SBUV(2) records (1979 - 1996), focusing on northern extratropical latitudes in February and southern extratropical latitudes in October. A simple model based on the linearized ozone mixing ratio continuity equation, in which the dynamics are specified from NCEP reanalysis geopotential height and temperature fields, is used to simulate the interannual variability in the spatial distribution of total ozone. Model estimates of the wave-induced variability in total ozone fields agree well, both qualitatively and quantitatively, with the variability observed in lower-resolution SBUV(2) and higher-resolution TOMS records, with the exception of certain years at high southern latitudes in October. Disagreement during these years is related to the displacement of the springtime ozone minimum from over the pole by enhanced planetary wave activity.

The combined Nimbus 7 SBUV, NOAA 11, and preliminary NOAA 9 SBUV/2 monthly zonal mean total ozone data set, extending from January 1979 to December 1995, is analyzed with a multiple regression statistical model that includes a term to describe the direct effect of volcanic aerosols on total ozone. Outside of polar regions, which are not included in this analysis, the volcanic regression coefficients in the northern hemisphere are negative (consistent with heterogeneous chemical losses of ozone on volcanic sulfate aerosols) and reach their maximum values between 40°N - 60°N latitude. Although inclusion of the aerosol term in the statistical model introduces some additional uncertainty to the derived solar response, statistically significant values of the solar coefficients are found in northern and southern subtropical regions throughout the year, with maximum amplitudes of ∼2.5% at 30° latitude in both hemispheres during winter. We conclude that the 11-year signal in the SBUV-SBUV/2 total ozone record is approximately separable from volcanic aerosol effects.

Ozone “mini-holes” represent regions of low total ozone (

A form of the linearized steady state ozone continuity equation, expressed in terms of perturbations in lower stratospheric temperature and geopotential height, is used to model the spatial distribution (i.e., deviations from the zonal mean) of total ozone in northern hemisphere (NH) winter for the period 1979-1991. Lower stratospheric temperatures from channel 4 of the microwave sounding unit (MSU), geopotential height and temperature analyses provided by the Stratospheric Research Group at the Free University of Berlin (FUB), and climatological values of the zonal mean ozone mixing ratio are used to calculate the ozone mixing ratio perturbation for a given location at three levels in the lower stratosphere: 100, 50, and 30 mbar. These values are then summed together to provide an estimate of the total ozone perturbation at northern extratropical latitudes for the months of January and February. By applying this modeling approach to individual months on a year-to-year basis, much of the observed year-to-year variability in the spatial distribution of total ozone is approximately simulated. A significant decrease of the wave-induced variance in the wintertime total ozone distribution over the 1979-1991 period is indicated, consistent with the observed longitude dependences of total ozone trends in NH winter.

A one-dimensional radiative transfer model with fixed dynamical heating is used to calculate the approximate latitude and seasonal dependences of lower stratospheric temperature changes associated with observed ozone trends. The spatial and temporal distribution of ozone profile trends in the lower stratosphere is estimated from a combination of Nimbus 7 Solar Backscattered Ultraviolet (SBUV) global measurements of the ozone column below 32 mbar for the period 1979-1990 and balloon ozonesonde profile trends at northern middle latitudes. The calculated temperature trends near 100 mbar compare favorably with those recently derived by Randel and Cobb (1994) using data from Channel 4 of the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) on the NOAA operational satellites, although a number of quantitative differences are found. An independent analysis reported here of 100 mbar temperatures derived from northern hemisphere radiosonde data at the Free University of Berlin (FUB) supports the validity of the satellite-derived lower stratospheric temperature trends. These results are therefore generally consistent with the hypothesis that observed lower stratospheric cooling trends are predominantly determined by reductions in radiative heating associated with stratospheric ozone depletion.

[1] Previous modeling studies have found significant differences in winter extratropical stratospheric temperatures depending on the presence or absence of zonally asymmetric ozone heating (ZAOH), yet the physical mechanism causing these differences has not been fully explained. The present study describes the effect of ZAOH on the dynamics of the Northern Hemisphere extratropical stratosphere using an ensemble of free-running atmospheric general circulation model simulations over the 1 December - 31 March period. We find that the simulations including ZAOH produce a significantly warmer and weaker stratospheric polar vortex in mid-February due to more frequent major stratospheric sudden warmings compared to the simulations using only zonal mean ozone heating. This is due to regions of enhanced Eliassen-Palm flux convergence found in the region between 40°N–70°N latitude and 10–0.05 hPa. These results are consistent with changes in the propagation of planetary waves in the presence of ZAOH predicted by an ozone-modified refractive index.

A multiple regression statistical model is applied to estimate the altitude, latitude, and seasonal dependences of stratospheric ozone trends using 11.5 years of Nimbus 7 SBUV data for the period November 1978 to June 1990. In the upper stratosphere, the derived trends agree in both latitude dependence and approximate amplitude with published predictions from stratospheric models that consider gas-phase chemical processes together with the observed [approximately]0.1 ppbV per year increase in tropospheric chlorine. The dominant contribution to column ozone trends occurs in the lower stratosphere where significant negative trends are present at latitudes >20[degrees] in both hemispheres. The observed latitude dependence is qualitatively consistent with model predictions that include the effects of heterogeneous chemical ozone losses on lower stratospheric aerosols.