Signatures of Anomalous Transport in the 2019/2020 Arctic Stratospheric
Polar Vortex
Abstract
The exceptionally strong and long-lived Arctic stratospheric polar
vortex in 2019/2020 resulted in large transport anomalies throughout the
fall-winter-spring period from vortex development to breakup. These
anomalies are studied using Aura MLS long-lived trace gas data for
N2O, H2O,and CO, ACE-FTS
CH4 , and meteorological and trace gas fields from
reanalyses. Strongest anomalies are seen throughout the winter in the
lower through middle stratosphere (from about 500K through 700K), with
record low (high) departures from climatology in N2O and
CH4 (H2O). CO also shows extreme high
anomalies in midwinter through spring down to about 550K. Examination of
descent rates, vortex confinement, and trace gas distributions in the
preceding months indicates that the early-winter anomalies in
N2O and H2O arose primarily from
entrainment of air with already-anomalous values (which likely resulted
from transport linked to an early January sudden stratospheric warming
the previous winter during a favorable quasi-biennial oscillation phase)
into the vortex as it developed in fall 2019 followed by descent of
those anomalies to lower levels within the vortex. Trace gas anomalies
in midwinter through the late vortex breakup in spring 2020 arose
primarily from inhibition of mixing between vortex and extravortex air
because of the exceptionally strong and persistent vortex. Persistent
strong N2O and H2O gradients across the
vortex edge demonstrate that air within the vortex and its remnants
remained very strongly confined through late April (mid-May) in the
middle (lower) stratosphere.