The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) and global-scale tropical waves in Aeolus wind observations, radiosonde data, and reanalyses

Ern, Manfred; Diallo, Mohamadou A.; Khordakova, Dina; Krisch, Isabell; Preusse, Peter; Reitebuch, Oliver; Ungermann, Jörn; Riese, Martin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9549-2023

Articles | Volume 23, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9549-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Aeolus data and their application (AMT/ACP/WCD inter-journal...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9549-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 23, issue 16

Research article

|

29 Aug 2023

Research article |

| 29 Aug 2023

The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) and global-scale tropical waves in Aeolus wind observations, radiosonde data, and reanalyses

Manfred Ern, Mohamadou A. Diallo, Dina Khordakova, Isabell Krisch, Peter Preusse, Oliver Reitebuch, Jörn Ungermann, and Martin Riese

Data sets

Aeolus L2B scientific wind products: Product Type ALD_U_N_2B European Space Agency (ESA) https://aeolus-ds.eo.esa.int/oads/access/collection/L2B_Wind_Products/tree

Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA) version 2 (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/integrated-global-radiosonde-archive/access/) I. Durre, X. Yin, S. Applequist, J. Arnfield, and R. S. Vose https://doi.org/10.7289/V5X63K0Q

Operational global reanalysis: progress, future directions and synergies with NWP (https://apps.ecmwf.int/data-catalogues/era5/?class=ea) H. Hersbach, P. de Rosnay, B. Bell, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, S. Abdalla, M. Alonso Balmaseda, G. Balsamo, P. Bechtold, P. Berrisford, J. Bidlot, E. de Boisséson, M. Bonavita, P. Browne, R. Buizza, P. Dahlgren, D. Dee, R. Dragani, M. Diamantakis, J. Flemming, R. Forbes, A. Geer, T. Haiden, E. Hólm, L. Haimberger, R. Hogan, A. Horányi, M. Janisková, P. Laloyaux, P. Lopez, J. Muñoz-Sabater, C. Peubey, R. Radu, D. Richardson, J.-N. Thépaut, F. Vitart, X. Yang, Zsótér, E. and H. Zuo https://doi.org/10.21957/tkic6g3wm

MERRA-2 inst3_3d_asm_Nv: 3d, 3-Hourly, Instantaneous, Model-Level, Assimilation, Assimilated Meteorological Fields V5.12.4 Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) https://doi.org/10.5067/WWQSXQ8IVFW8

Short summary

Quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) of the stratospheric tropical winds is an important mode of climate variability but is not well reproduced in free-running climate models. We use the novel global wind observations by the Aeolus satellite and radiosondes to show that the QBO is captured well in three modern reanalyses (ERA-5, JRA-55, and MERRA-2). Good agreement is also found also between Aeolus and reanalyses for large-scale tropical wave modes in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.