Articles | Volume 24, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2033-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-2033-2024
ACP Letters
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16 Feb 2024
ACP Letters | Highlight paper |  | 16 Feb 2024

Moist bias in the Pacific upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) in climate models affects regional circulation patterns

Felix Ploeger, Thomas Birner, Edward Charlesworth, Paul Konopka, and Rolf Müller

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Cited articles

Banerjee, A., Chiodo, G., Previdi, M., Ponater, M., Conley, A. J., and Polvani, L. M.: Stratospheric water vapor: an important climate feedback, Clim. Dynam., 53, 1432–0894, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-04721-4, 2019. a, b
Bergman, J. W., Fierli, F., Jensen, E. J., Honomichl, S., and Pan, L. L.: Boundary layer sources for the Asian anticyclone: Regional contributions to a vertical conduit, J. Geophys. Res., 118, 2560–2575, https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrd.50142, 2013. a
Brewer, A. W.: Evidence for a world circulation provided by the measurements of helium and water vapour distribution in the stratosphere, Q. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 75, 351–363, https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.49707532603, 1949. a
Charlesworth, E., Ploeger, F., Birner, T., Baikhadzhaev, R., Abalos, M., Abraham, L., Akiyoshi, H., Bekki, S., Dennison, F., Jöckel, P., Keeble, J., Kinnison, D., Morgenstern, O., Plummer, D., Rozanov, E., Strode, S., Zeng, G., and Riese, M.: Stratospheric water vapor affecting atmospheric circulation, Nat. Commun., 14, 3925, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39559-2, 2023. a, b, c, d, e, f, g
ECMWF: ERA5 reanalysis, https://apps.ecmwf.int/data-catalogues/era5/?class=ea, last access: 12 February 2024. a
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Executive editor
There is a very strong contrast between water vapor concentrations in the stratosphere (dry) and the troposphere (moist). Climate models typically represent this contrast poorly and suffer from a ‘moist bias’ in the extratropical lower stratosphere. Here two versions of a particular model, one a standard version and the other with a different transport scheme which greatly reduces the moist bias, are used to give a clear demonstration of its effect, through the radiative effects of water vapor, on the regional-scale tropospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere Pacific region. The authors then show that differences in moist bias explain differences in this circulation across a large set of climate models. Improvements in transport schemes and hence better representation of the troposphere-stratosphere contrast in water vapor are likely to improve important regional scale features of the tropospheric circulation.
Short summary
We present a novel mechanism of how regional anomalies in water vapour concentrations in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere impact regional atmospheric circulation systems. These impacts include a displaced upper-level Asian monsoon circulation and strengthened prevailing westerlies in the Pacific region. Current climate models have biases in simulating these regional water vapour anomalies and circulation impacts, but the biases can be avoided by improving the model transport.
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