Onset of circulation anomalies during stratospheric vortex weakening events: The role of planetary-scale waves

Abstract

To highlight the details of stratosphere-troposphere dynamical coupling during the onset of strong polar vortex variability, this study identifies stratospheric vortex weakening (SVW) events by rapid deceleration of the polar vortex and performs composite budget analyses in the transformed Eulerian-mean (TEM) framework on daily time scales. Consistent with previous work, a rapid deceleration of the polar vortex, followed by a rather slow recovery, is largely explained by conservative dynamics with nonnegligible contribution by nonconservative sinks of wave activity. During the onset of such events, stratospheric zonal wind anomalies show a near-instantaneous vertical coupling to the troposphere, which results from an anomalous upward and poleward propagation of planetary-scale waves. In the troposphere, zonal wind anomalies are also influenced by synoptic-scale waves, confirming previous studies. The SVW events driven by wavenumber-1 disturbances show comparable circulation anomalies to those driven by wavenumber-2 disturbances both in the stratosphere and troposphere. The former, however, exhibits more persistent anomalies after the onset than the latter. During both events, tropospheric wavenumber-1 and 2 disturbances project strongly onto the climatological waves, indicating that vertical propagation of planetary-scale waves into the stratosphere is largely caused by constructive linear interference. It is also found that the SVW-related vertical coupling is somewhat sensitive to the stratospheric mean state. Although overall evolution of zonal-mean circulation anomalies are reasonably similar under an initially weak or strong polar vortex, the time-lagged downward coupling is evident only when the polar vortex is decelerated under a weak vortex state. These results are compared with other definitions of weak polar vortex events, such as stratospheric sudden warming events.