Interannual variations of water vapor in the tropical upper troposphere and the lower and middle stratosphere and their connections to ENSO and QBO

Tian, Edward W.; Su, Hui; Tian, Baijun; Jiang, Jonathan H.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-9913-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 15

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-9913-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-9913-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 15

Research article

|

07 Aug 2019

Research article |

| 07 Aug 2019

Interannual variations of water vapor in the tropical upper troposphere and the lower and middle stratosphere and their connections to ENSO and QBO

Edward W. Tian, Hui Su, Baijun Tian, and Jonathan H. Jiang

Data sets

MLS water vapor data (https://mls.jpl.nasa.gov) Aura MLS project https://doi.org/10.1029/2007jd008752

Multivariate ENSO indices (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/data/meiv2.data) NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.2336

50 hPa QBO indices NOAA NCEP Climate Prediction Center (CPC) http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/qbo.u50.index

Short summary

We study the interannual (2–7-year) water vapor variations in the tropical upper troposphere and the lower and middle stratosphere and their connections to El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) using the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) data and time-lag regression analysis and composite analysis. We found that ENSO is more important in the upper troposphere and near the tropopause, while QBO is more important in the lower and middle stratosphere.