Interannual and Decadal Variations of Planetary Wave Activity, Stratospheric Cooling, and Northern Hemisphere Annular Mode

Abstract

Using NCEP–NCAR 51-yr reanalysis data, the interannual and decadal variations of planetary wave activity and its relationship to stratospheric cooling, and the Northern Hemisphere Annular mode (NAM), are studied. It is found that winter stratospheric polar temperature is highly correlated on a year-to-year basis with the Eliassen–Palm (E–P) wave flux from the troposphere, implying a dynamical control of the former by the latter, as often suggested. Greater (lower) wave activity from the troposphere implies larger (smaller) poleward heat flux into the polar region, which leads to warmer (colder) polar temperature. A similar highly correlated antiphase relationship holds for E–P flux divergence and the strength of the polar vortex in the stratosphere. It is tempting to extrapolate these relationships found for interannual timescales to explain the recent stratospheric polar cooling trend in the past few decades as caused by decreased wave activity in the polar region. This speculation is not supported by the data. On timescales of decades the cooling trend is not correlated with the trend in planetary wave activity. In fact, it is found that planetary wave amplitude, E–P flux, and E–P flux convergence all show little statistical evidence of decrease in the past 51 yr, while the stratosphere is experiencing a cooling trend and the NAM index has a positive trend during the past 30 yr. This suggests that the trends in the winter polar temperature and the NAM index can reasonably be attributed to the radiative cooling of the stratosphere, due possibly to increasing greenhouse gases and ozone depletion. It is further shown that the positive trend of the NAM index in the past few decades is not through the inhibition of upward planetary wave propagation from the troposphere to the stratosphere, as previously suggested.