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Stratospheric Processes And their Role in Climate
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SPARC INITIATIVES : The Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) and its possible role in coupling the Stratosphere and Troposphere

Co-chairs: Isamu Hirota (Japan), e-mail: hirota@kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Mark Baldwin (USA), e-mail: mark@nwra.com

 

An important natural fluctuation observed in the stratosphere is the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) of temperatures, winds and trace gases (including ozone), however the mechanism driving this mode of stratospheric variabilty is not yet fully understood. Since a quasi-biennial oscillation is also detected in tides, the occurence of huricanes and variations in sea-surface temperature, the SPARC SSG follows with close interest research on the stratospheric QBO and its potential influence on tropospheric climate.

A review of these scientific issues is available in the SPARC Implementation Plan.

 

Figure 4.7 of the SPARC Implementation Plan (28 Ko)
Quasi-biennial oscillation of zonal wind at equatorial stations. (From B. Naujokat, with permission.) Isopleths are in meters per second. The data are from Canton Island (January, 1953 to August, 1967), Canton Island (September, 1967 to December, 1975), Gan/Maldive Islands (January, 1976 to April, 1985), and Singapore (May, 1985 to August, 1997).

Workshop

SPARC Meeting on QBO La Jolla, California, 9-12 March 1998.

Publications

Report of the SPARC QBO Workshop,
M. Baldwin, SPARC newsletter 11, July 1998.

The Arctic Oscillation and its role in ST coupling,
M. Baldwin, SPARC newsletter 14, January 2000.

The Quasi-Biennial Oscillation,
M.Baldwin, L.J. Gray, T.J. Dunkerton et al., Reviews of Geophysics, 39, 179-229, 2001.

Baldwin, M.P. and Dunkerton, T.J.,
Stratospheric harbingers of anomalous weather regimes, Science, 244, 581-584, 2001.

Weather from the Stratosphere, Science, 301, 317-319, 2003.
Baldwin, M.P., Thompson D.W., Shuckburgh, E., Norton, W., Gillett, N.,

Stratospheric memory and skill of extended-range weather forecasts, Science, 301, 636-640, 2003.
Baldwin, M.P., Stephenson, D.B., Thompson D.W., Dunkerton, T.J., Charlton, A.J., O'Neill, A.,

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Last update: October 1, 2003