Mechanisms of the Tropical Upwelling Branch of the Brewer–Dobson Circulation: The Role of Extratropical Waves

Abstract

Abstract The role of extratropical waves in the tropical upwelling branch of the Brewer–Dobson circulation is investigated in an idealized model of the stratosphere and troposphere. To simulate different stratospheric seasonal cycles of planetary waves in the two hemispheres, seasonally varying radiative heating is imposed only in the stratosphere, and surface topographic forcing is prescribed only in the Northern Hemisphere (NH). A zonally symmetric version of the same model is used to diagnose the effects of different wavenumbers and different regions of the total forcing on tropical stratospheric upwelling. The simple configuration can simulate a reasonable seasonal cycle of the tropical upwelling in the lower stratosphere with a stronger amplitude in January (NH midwinter) than in July (NH midsummer), as in the observations. It is shown that the seasonal cycle of stratospheric planetary waves and tropical upwelling responds nonlinearly to the strength of the tropospheric forcing, with a midwinter maximum under strong NH-like tropospheric forcing and double peaks in the fall and spring under weak Southern Hemisphere (SH)-like forcing. The planetary wave component of the total forcing can approximately reproduce the seasonal cycle of tropical stratospheric upwelling in the zonally symmetric model. The zonally symmetric model further demonstrates that the planetary wave forcing in the winter tropical and subtropical stratosphere contributes most to the seasonal cycle of tropical stratospheric upwelling, rather than the high-latitude wave forcing. This suggests that the planetary wave forcing, prescribed mostly in the extratropics in the model, has to propagate equatorward into the subtropical latitudes to induce sufficient tropical upwelling. Another interesting finding is that the planetary waves in the summer lower stratosphere can drive a shallow residual circulation rising in the subtropics and subsiding in the extratropics.