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The Southern Hemisphere (SH) stratospheric stationary wave amplitude increased significantly in late spring and early summer during the last two decades of the twentieth century. A suite of chemistry climate model simulations are examined to explore the underlying cause and the separate effects of anthropogenic forcing from ozone depleting substances (ODSs) and greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the past and projected SH stationary wave evolution. The model simulations produce trends in the wave amplitude similar to that observed, although somewhat weaker. In simulations with changing ODSs, this increase in amplitude is reproduced during the ozone depletion period and is reversed during the ozone recovery period. This response is related to changes in the strength and timing of the breakdown of the SH polar vortex associated with ozone depletion and recovery. GHG increases have little impact on the simulated stratospheric stationary wave amplitude but are projected to induce an eastward phase shift of the waves. This phase shift is linked to the strengthening of the subtropical jets driven by GHG forcing via sea surface warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seasonal time dependence of the tropospheric circulation response to polar stratospheric cooling in a simple atmospheric general circulation model is investigated. When the model is run without a seasonal cycle, polar stratospheric cooling induces a positive annular-mode response in the troposphere that takes a remarkably long time—several hundred days—to fully equilibrate. One is thus led to ask whether the tropospheric response would survive in the presence of a seasonal cycle. When a seasonal cycle is introduced into the model stratosphere, the tropospheric response appears with a distinct time lag with respect to the stratospheric cooling, but, in the long-term mean, the pattern of the wind response is very similar to the one that results from stratospheric forcing in the absence of a seasonal cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple dynamical model is presented for the basic spatial and temporal structure of the large-scale modes of intraseasonal variability and associated variations in the zonal index. Such variability in the extratropical atmosphere is known to be represented by fairly well-defined patterns, and among the most prominent are the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and a more zonally symmetric pattern known as an annular mode, which is most pronounced in the Southern Hemisphere. These patterns may be produced by the momentum fluxes associated with large-scale midlatitude stirring, such as that provided by baroclinic eddies. It is shown how such stirring, as represented by a simple stochastic forcing in a barotropic model, leads to a variability in the zonal flow via a variability in the eddy momentum flux convergence and to patterns similar to those observed. Typically, the leading modes of variability may be characterized as a mixture of “wobbles” in the zonal jet position and “pulses” in the zonal jet strength. If the stochastic forcing is statistically zonally uniform, then the resulting patterns of variability as represented by empirical orthogonal functions are almost zonally uniform and the pressure pattern is dipolar in the meridional direction, resembling an annular mode. If the forcing is enhanced in a zonally localized region, thus mimicking the effects of a storm track over the ocean, then the resulting variability pattern is zonally localized, resembling the North Atlantic Oscillation. This suggests that the North Atlantic Oscillation and annular modes are produced by the same mechanism and are manifestations of the same phenomenon. The time scale of variability of the patterns is longer than the decorrelation time scale of the stochastic forcing, because of the temporal integration of the forcing by the equations of motion limited by the effects of nonlinear dynamics and friction. For reasonable parameters these produce a decorrelation time of the order of 5–10 days. The model also produces some long-term (100 days or longer) variability, without imposing such variability via the external parameters except insofar as it is contained in the nearly white stochastic forcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The response of the Southern Hemisphere (SH), extratropical, atmospheric general circulation to transient, anthropogenic, greenhouse warming is investigated in a coupled climate model. The extratropical circulation response consists of a SH summer half-year poleward shift of the westerly jet and a year-round positive wind anomaly in the stratosphere and the tropical upper troposphere. Along with the poleward shift of the jet, there is a poleward shift of several related fields, including the belt of eddy momentum-flux convergence and the mean meridional overturning in the atmosphere and in the ocean. The tropospheric wind response projects strongly onto the model's "Southern Annular Mode" (also known as the "Antarctic oscillation"), which is the leading pattern of variability of the extratropical zonal winds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]