Identification

Title

An update of observed stratospheric temperature trends

Abstract

An updated analysis of observed stratospheric temperature variability and trends is presented on the basis of satellite, radiosonde, and lidar observations. Satellite data include measurements from the series of NOAA operational instruments, including the Microwave Sounding Unit covering 1979 - 2007 and the Stratospheric Sounding Unit (SSU) covering 1979 - 2005. Radiosonde results are compared for six different data sets, incorporating a variety of homogeneity adjustments to account for changes in instrumentation and observational practices. Temperature changes in the lower stratosphere show cooling of -0.5 K/decade over much of the globe for 1979 - 2007, with some differences in detail among the different radiosonde and satellite data sets. Substantially larger cooling trends are observed in the Antarctic lower stratosphere during spring and summer, in association with development of the Antarctic ozone hole. Trends in the lower stratosphere derived from radiosonde data are also analyzed for a longer record (back to 1958); trends for the presatellite era (1958 - 1978) have a large range among the different homogenized data sets, implying large trend uncertainties. Trends in the middle and upper stratosphere have been derived from updated SSU data, taking into account changes in the SSU weighting functions due to observed atmospheric CO₂ increases. The results show mean cooling of 0.5 - 1.5 K/decade during 1979 - 2005, with the greatest cooling in the upper stratosphere near 40 - 50 km. Temperature anomalies throughout the stratosphere were relatively constant during the decade 1995 - 2005. Long records of lidar temperature measurements at a few locations show reasonable agreement with SSU trends, although sampling uncertainties are large in the localized lidar measurements. Updated estimates of the solar cycle influence on stratospheric temperatures show a statistically significant signal in the tropics (-30°N - S), with an amplitude (solar maximum minus solar minimum) of -0.5 K (lower stratosphere) to -1.0 K (upper stratosphere).

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7mp54bn

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2009-01-23T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact