Fast transport pathways into the Northern Hemisphere upper troposphere and lower stratosphere during northern summer

Abstract

This study identifies the fast (i.e., ∼ days–weeks) transport pathways that connect the Northern Hemisphere surface to the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) during northern summer by integrating a large (90 member) ensemble of Boundary Impulse Response tracers in the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model version 5. We show that there is a fast transport pathway that occurs over the southern slope of the Tibetan Plateau, northern India, the Arabian Sea, and Saudi Arabia; furthermore, we show that during July this pathway connects the Northern Hemisphere surface to the UTLS on a modal time scale of 5–10 days. A less efficient transport pathway is also identified over the western Pacific. A detailed budget analysis reveals that, while convective processes are responsible for transport to 200–300 hPa, the resolved dynamics, specifically the vertical eddy flux, dominate at 100–150 hPa. Transport variations are analyzed on weekly, monthly, and interannual time scales and are largely related to differences in the resolved dynamics in the UTLS.