The predictability of the extratropical stratosphere on monthly time‐scales and its impact on the skill of tropospheric forecasts

By O. Tripathi, M. Baldwin, A. Charlton-Perez, Martin Charron, Stephen D. Eckermann, E. Gerber, R. Harrison, David R. Jackson, Baek‐Min Kim, Y. Kuroda and 6 more. 2015

207 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Extreme variability of the winter‐ and spring‐time stratospheric polar vortex has been shown to affect extratropical tropospheric weather. Therefore, reducing stratospheric forecast error may be one way to improve the skill of tropospheric weather forecasts. In this review, the basis for this idea is examined. A range of studies of different stratospheric extreme vortex events shows that they can be skilfully forecasted beyond 5 days and into the sub‐seasonal range (0–30 days) in some cases. Separate studies show that typical errors in forecasting a stratospheric extreme vortex event can alter tropospheric forecast skill by 5–7% in the extratropics on sub‐seasonal time‐scales. Thus understanding what limits stratospheric predictability is of significant interest to operational forecasting centres. Both limitations in forecasting tropospheric planetary waves and stratospheric model biases have been shown to be important in this context.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dddc6d75ba0f29dba45de4b0100be6390fd7aab4

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Citations in the corpus

Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (2020, background): “As reviewed by Tripathi et al. (2015), models are typically able to capture the onset of SSW events at least ﬁve days before the event and sometimes on much longer, sub-seasonal timescales (two weeks to two months) (Rao, Garﬁnkel, et al., 2019).”
Predictability of downward propagation of major sudden stratospheric warmings (2017, background): “Predictability of SSWs was discussed in a number of recent studies (e.g. Tripathi et al., 2015, 2016) because of their implications for sub-seasonal climate forecasts.”
The Remarkably Strong Arctic Stratospheric Polar Vortex of Winter 2020: Links to Record‐Breaking Arctic Oscillation and Ozone Loss (2020, background): “Anomalously strong or weak polar vortex states correspond to positive or negative phases of the stratospheric NAM, respectively, and these tend to be followed in the troposphere by positive or negative AO events, which may last for weeks to months and alter patterns of surface temperatures and preci”