Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions
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10.5194/acpd-10-3975-2010
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/3975/2010/
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/3975/2010/acpd-10-3975-2010.html
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/3975/2010/acpd-10-3975-2010.pdf
3975
4025
2010-02-11
Water vapor budget associated to overshoots in the tropical stratosphere: mesoscale modelling study of 4–5 August 2006 during SCOUT-AMMA
X. M. Liu
E. D. Rivière
V. Marécal
G. Durry
A. Hamdouni
J. Arteta
S. Khaykin
Groupe de Spectrométrie moléculaire et Atmosphérique (GSMA), Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne (URCA) and CNRS, UMR6089, Reims, France
Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace (LPC2E), CNRS and Université d'Orléans, France
Central Aerological Observatory of Roshydromet 3, Pervomayskaya str. Dolgoprudny, Moscow region 141700, Russian Federation, Russia
now at: Centre National de Recherche Météorologique (CNRM), Météo-France and CNRS, Toulouse, France
The aim of this paper is to study the impacts of overshooting convection at
a local scale on the water distribution in the tropical UTLS. Overshooting
convection is likely to be one of the key processes controlling the entry of
water vapour amount in the stratosphere by injecting ice crystals above the
tropopause which later sublimate and hydrate the lower stratosphere. For
this purpose, we quantify the individual impact of two overshooting cases in
Africa observed during SCOUT-AMMA: the case of 4 August 2006 over
Southern Chad which is likely to have influenced the water vapour
measurements by micro-SDLA and FLASH-B from Niamey on 5 August, and
the case of a mesoscale convective system over Aϊr on 5 August
2006. We make use of high resolution (down to 1 km horizontally) three
nested grid simulations with the three-dimensional regional atmospheric
model BRAMS (Brazilian Regional Atmospheric Modelling System). In both
cases, BRAMS succeeds in simulating the main features of the convective
activity, as well as overshooting convection, thought the exact position and
time of the overshoots indicated by MSG brightness temperature difference is
not fully reproduced (typically 1° in latitude compared with the
overshoots indicated by brightness temperature difference from satellite
observations for both cases, and several hours shift the Aϊr case on
5 August 2006). Total water budgets associated with these two events
show a significant injection of ice particles above the tropopause with
maximum values of about 3.7 ton s<sup>−1</sup> for the Chad case (4 August)
and 1.4 ton s<sup>−1</sup> for the Aϊr case (5 August), and a total
cross tropopause transport of about 3300 ton h<sup>−1</sup> for the Chad case and
2400 ton h<sup>−1</sup> for the Aϊr case in the third domain of simulation.
The order of magnitude of these modelled fluxes is lower but comparable with
similar studies in other tropical areas based on models. These two
estimations exhibit significant differences and highlight variability among
the cases of the impact of overshooting convection in hydrating the lower
stratosphere. We show that the regional enhancement of water above the
tropopause is between 0.21 to 0.67 ppmv between 380 K and 400 K, in the range
of other model estimations. Finally we emphasize that as long as the model
resolution is high, the hydrated area in the LS by overshooting convection
can be advected relatively far away from the overshoot initial location,
with locally mixing ratios of more than 3 ppmv higher than the background
level, which is compatible with the balloon borne measurements performed
above Niamey in the same air mass, 30 h after the overshoot. However, in
the model, when exiting the highest resolution grid, the hydrating signal is
lost rapidly.
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