Simulations of anthropogenic change in the strength of the Brewer-Dobson circulation
The effect of climate change on the Brewer-Dobson circulation and, in particular, the large-scale seasonal-mean transport between the troposphere and stratosphere is compared in a number of middle atmosphere general circulation models. All the models reproduce the observed upwelling across the tropical tropopause balanced by downwelling in the extra tropics, though the seasonal cycle in upwelling in some models is more semi-annual than annual. All the models also consistently predict an increase in the mass exchange rate in response to growing greenhouse gas concentrations, irrespective of whether or not the model includes interactive ozone chemistry. The mean trend is 11 kt s-1 year-1 or about 2% per decade but varies considerably between models. In all but one of the models the increase in mass exchange occurs throughout the year though, generally, the trend is larger during the boreal winter. On average, more than 60% of the mean mass fluxes can be explained by the EP-flux divergence using the downward control principle. Trends in the annual mean mass fluxes derived from the EP-flux divergence also explain about 60% of the trend in the troposphere-to-stratosphere mass exchange rate when averaged over all the models. Apart from two models the interannual variability in the downward control derived and actual mass fluxes were generally well correlated, for the annual mean. © British Crown Copyright 2006.
Duke Scholars
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- Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
- 3708 Oceanography
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- 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience
- 0405 Oceanography
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Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
- 3708 Oceanography
- 3702 Climate change science
- 3701 Atmospheric sciences
- 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience
- 0405 Oceanography
- 0401 Atmospheric Sciences