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Standard Daily Potential Vorticity and Temperature Maps


Daily maps of potential vorticity (PV) and temperature from


* NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Versions 4.03 (GEOS-4) analyses (Bloom et al., 2005).


* The UK Met Office's Stratosphere Troposphere Assimilation System (Swinbank and O'Neill, 1994; Swinbank et al., 2002), distributed by the British Atmospheric Data Center (BADC).


Maps show PV (left two columns) and temperature (right two columns) in the upper (1700 K, 1 hPa), middle (850/840 K (GEOS-4/MetO), 10 hPa), and lower (490/520 K, 50/46 hPa (GEOS-4/MetO)) stratosphere, on NH (left) and SH (right) polar projections. PV is in units of 10e-4 K m^2 (kg s)^-1; temperature is in K. PV maps have horizontal wind vectors overlaid. PV from the Met Office data are calculated as described by Manney et al. (1996), using routines adapted from those described by Newman et al. (1989). PV from GEOS-4 is from their analyses, calculated within the assimilation system, as provided in that dataset. The map projection is orthographic, with 0 deg longitude at the bottom/top in the NH/SH and 90 deg E to the right.


Note that the contour intervals for the NH and SH may be different; there are "summer" and "winter" scales for both PV and temperature. "Summer" colors are used in the NH during May through September. Since winter-like conditions persist so much longer in the SH, "summer" colors are used there only during January through March.

Standard Daily UTLS Maps


Daily maps of several quantities describing the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS) region. Maps are taken from or derived from NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Versions 4.03 (GEOS-4) analyses (Bloom et al., 2005).


The eight panels show:


1. 250 hPa geopotential height (GPH, km) and windspeed (m/s) from GEOS-4.

2. Temperature gradient tropopause, calculated as described by Reichler et al. (2003) using the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) definition.

3 and 4. Potential Vorticity (PV, 10e-4 K m^2 (kg s)^-1) from GEOS-4. White line(s) show(s) PV value(s) commonly used to define the extra-tropical tropopause.

5. Cold Point Temperature (K) from GEOS-4. Contours are overlaid at #K intervals for temperatures less than XXX K.

6. Diabatic heating rates (dT/dt, K/d) from GEOS-4; postive values (ascent) are outlined in white.

7. 200 hPa divergence (colors, 1/s) calculated from GEOS-4 analyses. Overlaid in grey are contours of negative omega (dp/dt, the vertical velocity in pressure coordinates, Pa/s), indicating ascent.

8. 200 hPa velocity potential (10e-7 m^-2 s^-1) calculated from GEOS-4 analyses, with overlaid wind vectors (m/s).


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References:

  • Bloom, S. C., et al., The Goddard Earth Observing Data Assimilation System, GEOS DAS Version 4.0.3: Documentation and validation, Tech. Rep. 104606 V26, NASA.
  • Manney, G. L., R. Swinbank, S. T. Massie, M. E. Gelman, A. J. Miller, R. Nagatani, A. O'Neill, and R. W. Zurek, Comparison of U.K. Meteorological Office and U.S. National Meteorological Center stratospheric analyses during northern and southern winter, J. Geophys. Res., 101, 10,311--10,334, 1996.
  • Newman, P. A., L. R. Lait, M. R. Schoeberl, R. M. Nagatani, and A. J. Krueger, Meteorological atlas of the Northern Hemisphere lower stratosphere for January and February 1989 during the Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expedition, Tech. Rep. 4145, NASA, 1989.
  • Reichler, T., M. Dameris and R. Sausen, Determining the tropopause height from gridded data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 30, 2042, doi:10.1029/2003GL018240, 2003
  • Swinbank, R., and A. O'Neill, A stratosphere-troposphere data assimilation system, Mon. Weather Rev., 122, 686--702, 1994.
  • Swinbank, R., N. B. Ingleby, P. M. Boorman, and R. J. Renshaw, 2002: A 3D variational data assimilation system for the stratosphere and troposphere. Tech. Rep. 71, Met Office Numerical Weather Prediction Forecasting Research Scientific Paper.


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