Tropical stratospheric upwelling as seen in observations of the tape recorder signal

Brehon, Meghan; Tegtmeier, Susann; Bourassa, Adam; Davis, Sean M.; Grabowski, Udo; Kerzenmacher, Tobias; Stiller, Gabriele

doi:10.5194/acp-26-3743-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-3743-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-3743-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 5

Research article

|

17 Mar 2026

Research article |

| 17 Mar 2026

Tropical stratospheric upwelling as seen in observations of the tape recorder signal

Meghan Brehon, Susann Tegtmeier, Adam Bourassa, Sean M. Davis, Udo Grabowski, Tobias Kerzenmacher, and Gabriele Stiller

Data sets

KIT ANCISTRUS MIPAS L3 effective transport velocities and eddy diffusion coefficients dataset, v1.0 T. Kerzenmacher et al. https://doi.org/10.35097/0tte3mfg683s62nr

MLS/Aura Level 3 Daily Binned Water Vapor (H2O) Mixing Ratio on Assorted Grids V005 A. Lambert et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/MLS/DATA/3508

MLS/Aura Level 3 Daily Binned Hydrogen Chloride (HCl) Mixing Ratio on Assorted Grids V005 L. Froidevaux et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/MLS/DATA/3509

MLS/Aura Level 2 Temperature V005 M. Schwartz et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/MLS/DATA2520

Reanalysis Intercomparison Dataset (RID) P. Martineau https://www.jamstec.go.jp/RID/thredds/catalog/catalog.html

Short summary

We used observations of water vapour to estimate vertical transport rates in the tropical stratosphere for 1995-2020 and analyze stratospheric variability. Our results find good agreement between our observation-based estimates and reanalysis upwelling and reveal that the variability is mainly driven by the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) with a clear signal in the upwelling time series coinciding with the recent QBO disruptions of 2015/16 and 2019/20.