Reanalysis intercomparison of potential vorticity and potential-vorticity-based diagnostics

Millán, Luis F.; Manney, Gloria L.; Lawrence, Zachary D.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5355-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5355-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

The SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP) (ACP/ESSD...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5355-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 7

Research article

|

07 Apr 2021

Research article |

| 07 Apr 2021

Reanalysis intercomparison of potential vorticity and potential-vorticity-based diagnostics

Luis F. Millán, Gloria L. Manney, and Zachary D. Lawrence

Data sets

MERRA-2 GES DISC https://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?keywords=\%22MERRA-2\%22

ERA-Interim ECMWF http://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/

JRA-55: Japanese 55-year Reanalysis, Daily 3-Hourly and 6-Hourly Data, updated monthly Japan Meteorological Agency/Japan https://doi.org/10.5065/D6HH6H41

Short summary

We assess how consistently reanalyses represent potential vorticity (PV) among each other. PV helps describe dynamical processes in the stratosphere because it acts approximately as a tracer of the movement of air parcels; it is extensively used to identify the location of the tropopause and to identify and characterize the stratospheric polar vortex. Overall, PV from all reanalyses agrees well with the reanalysis ensemble mean.