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Stratospheric Processes And their Role in Climate
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| Home | Initiatives | Organisation | Publications | Meetings | Acronyms and Abbreviations | Useful Links |
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Stratospheric Processes And their Role in Climate
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| Home | Initiatives | Organisation | Publications | Meetings | Acronyms and Abbreviations | Useful Links |
The results of tropopshere-stratosphere general circulation models must be checked against atmospheric observations.
This initiative aims to produce a climatology from observations and meteorological analyses, primarily for use in validating stratosphere-troposphere general circulation models. This will include intercomparison of existing stratospheric analyses (e.g. NCEP (NMC), UKMO assimilation and SSU analyses, Goddard STRATAN, Berlin analyses), with emphasis on understanding uncertainties in basic quantities. Tropical wind measurements will also be included. This climatology will include long time means, plus estimates of daily/interannual variance/covariance statistics for zonal means, latitude-longitude sections and planetary wave fields.
Seasonal variation of methane (CH4) in the upper stratosphere (pressure level of 2.2 mb, near 43 km altitude). The strong semi-annual variation in low latitudes with maxima in the summer subtropics is due to seasonal variations in tropical upwelling (the Brewer-Dobson circulation). Low values of CH4 in summer polar latitudes are due to rapid photochemical destruction. (Figure published in SPARC Newsletter 12).
First SPARC Reference Climatology Workshop, Port Jefferson, New York, September 9-10, 1996 Conveners: W. Randel and M. Geller
Report from the First SPARC Reference
Climatology Workshop,
W. Randel, SPARC Newsletter 8, January 1997.
Climatologies of stratospheric constituents derived for UARS data ,
William Randel, SPARC Newsletter 12, January 1999.
SPARC Report N°3 : SPARC Intercomparison of Middle Atmosphere Climatologies, WCRP - 116, WMO/TD N° 1142 (December 2002) (.pdf format)
The SPARC Intercomparison of Middle Atmosphere Climatologies,
by W. Randel, SPARC Newsletter 20, January 2003
UARS Reference Atmosphere Home Page
Last update: February 20, 2003