Analysis of 24 years of mesopause region OH rotational temperature observations at Davis, Antarctica – Part 2: Evidence of a quasi-quadrennial oscillation (QQO) in the polar mesosphere

French, W. John R.; Klekociuk, Andrew R.; Mulligan, Frank J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8691-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 14

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8691-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8691-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 14

Research article

|

22 Jul 2020

Research article |

| 22 Jul 2020

Analysis of 24 years of mesopause region OH rotational temperature observations at Davis, Antarctica – Part 2: Evidence of a quasi-quadrennial oscillation (QQO) in the polar mesosphere

W. John R. French, Andrew R. Klekociuk, and Frank J. Mulligan

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8691-2020-supplement

Data sets

Rotational temperature studies of the hydroxyl airglow layer above Davis G. Burns, and J. French https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/Davis_OH_airglow

ML2T: MLS/Aura Level 2 Temperature V004 NASA https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/ML2T_004/summary?keywords=MLS

Microwave Limb Sounder NASA https://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/index-eos-mls.php

ERA5: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/dataset/reanalysis-era5-pressure-levels-monthly-means?tab=overview

NOAA Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (SST) V4 NOAA https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.ersst.v4.html

NOAA Optimum Interpolation (OI) Sea Surface Temperature (SST) V2 NOAA https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.noaa.oisst.v2.html

KNMI Climate Explorer: A Web-Based Research Tool for High-Resolution Paleoclimatology V. Trouet, and G. J. Van Oldenborgh https://climexp.knmi.nl/start.cgi

WCRP CMIP5: The NSF-DOE-NCAR team CESM1-WACCM model output collection Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/1d9825e2b05b48cdb7971ced8c63965a

Short summary

We explore a quasi-quadrennial oscillation (QQO; 3–4 K amplitude, ~ 4-year period) in mesopause region temperatures observed in 24 years of hydroxyl airglow measurements over Davis, Antarctica (68° S, 78° E). Correlation and composite analysis using meteorological reanalysis and satellite data reveals complex patterns on the QQO timescale in both hemispheres. Modulation of the meridional circulation, linked to the propagation of gravity waves, plays a significant role in producing the QQO response.