scostep 2010 (stp12) - Leibniz-Institut für Atmosphärenphysik an der ...

STP12 Abstracts
Berlin, 12 - 16 July 2010
SCOSTEP Symposium 2010
Experimental evidence for dynamical coupling from the lower atmosphere up to the
thermosphere during a major stratospheric warming from MIPAS observations
Funke Bernd 1 , López-Puertas Manuel 1 , Bermejo-Pantaleón Diego 1 , García-Comas Maya 1 , Stiller
Gabrielle 2 , Von Clarmann Thomas 2 , Kiefer Michael 2 , Linden Andrea 2
1 Instituto de Astrofïsica de Andalucía (CSIC), 2 Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, KIT
Stratospheric sudden warmings (SSWs) represent dramatic meteorological disturbances which
affect the polar winter atmosphere in a wide altitude range. While the mechanisms of SSWs
are well understood in the middle atmosphere, little is known about the polar temperature
responses to SSW above 120 km. We used temperature data from the Michelson
Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) on board ESA’s Envisat satellite
to analyze the temperature responses in the mesosphere and thermosphere up to 170km to a
major stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) which occurred in January 2009. The
observations show clear signatures of a mesospheric cooling and a thermospheric warming,
the latter peaking at 120–140 km. From the analysis of the zonal temperature structure during
the SSW a pronounced wave 1 pattern was found in the stratosphere and thermosphere. In the
mesosphere, the wave amplitude is significantly damped. The wave amplification above is
most likely produced by in situ forced planetary waves in the MLT region. Our observations
represent, to our best knowledge, the first experimental evidence for dynamical coupling from
the lower atmosphere up to the thermosphere by means of satellite data.