RT Journal Article
T1 A new diagnostic of stratospheric polar vortices
A1 Gimeno, Luis
A1 De la Torre, Laura
A1 Nieto, Raquel
A1 Gallego, David
A1 Ribera, Pedro
A1 García Herrera, Ricardo Francisco
AB We studied the main climatological features of the Arctic and Antarctic stratospheric vortices, using a new approach based on defining the vortex edge as the 50 hPa geostrophic streamline of maximum average velocity at each hemisphere. Given the use of NCAR-NCEP reanalysis data, it was thought advisable to limit the study to the periods 1958–2004 for the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and 1979–2004 for the Southern Hemisphere (SH). After describing the method and testing sample results with those from other approaches, we analysed the climatological means and trends of the four most distinctive characteristics of the vortices: average latitude, strength, area, and temperature. In general terms, our results confirm most of what is already known about the stratospheric vortices from previous studies that used different data and approaches. In addition, the new methodology provides some interesting new quantifications of the dominant wavenumber and its interannual variability, as well as the principal variability modes through an empirical orthogonal function analysis that was performed directly over the vortex trajectories. The main drawbacks of the methodology, such as noticeable problems characterising highly disturbed stratospheric structures as multiple or off-pole vortices, are also identified.
PB Pergamon- Elsevier Science Ltd
SN 1364-6826
YR 2007
FD 2007-11
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/52586
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/52586
LA eng
NO © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under the project TROJET (CGL2005-07288-C05). We thank Alexey Karpetchko for providing data on the stratospheric vortex and the Xunta de Galicia, the FCT of Portuguese Ministry of Science (SFRH/BPD/22178/2005) and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science for granting the stays of R. Nieto and L. Gimeno in the CGUL through the programmes “Bolsas para estadias no estranxeiro” and “Programa Nacional de ayudas para la movilidad de profesores de universidad e investigadores españoles y extranjeros”. The authors also thank reviewers for their useful comments to the original manuscript.
NO Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MEC)
NO Xunta de Galicia
NO FCT of Portuguese Ministry of Science
DS Docta Complutense
RD 11 abr 2025