In this post I review the temperature structure of the atmosphere and lower stratosphere temperature (TLS) anomaly trends.
Temperature Structure in the Atmosphere
In post 1 of this series, I developed this RClimate chart of temperature soundings which I update daily: (Click to enlarge)
I have made several revisions to my ambient lapse rate calculation in the past month because I noticed that the inflection point for the temperature profile varies from approximately 8 km to 11 km on a day to day basis.
Atmospheric Thermal Structure
The temperature soundings chart shows how the temperature changes with increase in altitude. Scientists have defined several atmospheric layers based on how temperature changes with altitude: troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere (link).
This RClimate chart shows US Standard Atmosphere – 1976 (link). The tropopause, stratopause and mesopause are zones between layers where the temperature does not change vertically.
The Ozone layer is in the 15-25 km altitude region, within the lower stratosphere. Ozone concentrations in the troposphere are approximately 0.04 ppmv, they are 10 ppmv in the lower stratosphere. Ozone absorbs ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun, causing the stratosphere to warm.
Lower Stratosphere Temperature Trends
RSS provides monthly temperature anomalies for 4 zones:
- Lower Troposphere (TLT)
- Middle Troposphere (TMP)
- Troposphere/ Stratosphere (TTS)
- Lower Stratosphere (TLS)
The TLT and TLS land ocean series are included in the CTS.csv file as RSS and TLS respectively.
The following RClimate chart shows the monthly TLT data series since 1979. In a previous post about volcanoes, I discussed the Stratospheric Aerosol Optical Thickness Index (SATO) (link) and showed the global dimming effects of major volcanic eruptions. I have included the SATO Index in this chart to show the effects of volcanic eruptions on stratospheric temperature anomalies.
The TLS trend is clearly downward in the 1979-21011 period, with or without the high SATO index years.
The data for RSS TLT and SATO index are available in my CTS.csv file. The RClimate script is available at this link.
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It seems quite obvious that major volcanic activity (at least in the tropical latitude s) have a significant impact on stratospheric temperatures. Your conclusion that “the TLS trend is clearly downward in the 1979-21011 period” should be tempered by the observation that the trend has been slightly upwards since the end of impact of major volcanic activity — for the last 16 years.
The lower stratosphere temperature profile is essentially flat from ca. 1995 to the present. This approximately mirrors the temperature trend for the surface temperature. From 1980 to about 1995, the surface temperature increased while the lower statospheric temperature decreased. After that both went flat.
tony
See my post on your comment here.
I’m trying to make it as easy as possible for readers to do their own analysis. The TLS,TLT and GISS data are all in my CTS.csv file. You can download it and do your analysis in Excel, R or other software that can read a csv file.
Hey Kelly,
came across this: http://webs.ono.com/climatol/climatol.html
you might be interested. A new update (climatol2) was just released with new features.