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Signatures of Anomalous Transport in the 2019/2020 Arctic Stratospheric Polar Vortex
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  • Gloria L Manney,
  • Luis Millan,
  • Michelle L. Santee,
  • Krzysztof Wargan,
  • Alyn Lambert,
  • Jessica L. Neu,
  • Frank Werner,
  • Zachary Duane Lawrence,
  • Michael J. Schwartz,
  • Nathaniel J Livesey,
  • William G. Read
Gloria L Manney
Northwest Research Associates

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Luis Millan
Jet propulsion laboratory
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Michelle L. Santee
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Krzysztof Wargan
Science Systems and Applications, Inc.
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Alyn Lambert
Jet Propulsion Lab (NASA)
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Jessica L. Neu
Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Caltech
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Frank Werner
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Zachary Duane Lawrence
CIRES/NOAA
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Michael J. Schwartz
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
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Nathaniel J Livesey
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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William G. Read
Jet Propulsion Lab (NASA)
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Abstract

The exceptionally strong and long-lived Arctic stratospheric polar vortex in 2019/2020 resulted in large transport anomalies throughout the fall-winter-spring period from vortex development to breakup. These anomalies are studied using Aura MLS long-lived trace gas data for N2O, H2O,and CO, ACE-FTS CH4 , and meteorological and trace gas fields from reanalyses. Strongest anomalies are seen throughout the winter in the lower through middle stratosphere (from about 500K through 700K), with record low (high) departures from climatology in N2O and CH4 (H2O). CO also shows extreme high anomalies in midwinter through spring down to about 550K. Examination of descent rates, vortex confinement, and trace gas distributions in the preceding months indicates that the early-winter anomalies in N2O and H2O arose primarily from entrainment of air with already-anomalous values (which likely resulted from transport linked to an early January sudden stratospheric warming the previous winter during a favorable quasi-biennial oscillation phase) into the vortex as it developed in fall 2019 followed by descent of those anomalies to lower levels within the vortex. Trace gas anomalies in midwinter through the late vortex breakup in spring 2020 arose primarily from inhibition of mixing between vortex and extravortex air because of the exceptionally strong and persistent vortex. Persistent strong N2O and H2O gradients across the vortex edge demonstrate that air within the vortex and its remnants remained very strongly confined through late April (mid-May) in the middle (lower) stratosphere.