Long-term and continuous observations of mesospheric–lower thermospheric winds are rare, but they are important to investigate climatological changes at these altitudes on timescales of several years, covering a solar cycle and longer. Such long time series are a natural heritage of the mesosphere–lower thermosphere climate, and they are valuable to compare climate models or long-term runs of general circulation models (GCMs). Here we present a climatological comparison of wind observations from six meteor radars at two conjugate latitudes to validate the corresponding mean winds and atmospheric diurnal and semidiurnal tides from three GCMs, namely the Ground-to-Topside Model of Atmosphere and Ionosphere for Aeronomy (GAIA), the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model Extension (Specified Dynamics) (WACCM-X(SD)), and the Upper Atmosphere ICOsahedral Non-hydrostatic (UA-ICON) model. Our results indicate that there are interhemispheric differences in the seasonal characteristics of the diurnal and semidiurnal tide. There are also some differences in the mean wind climatologies of the models and the observations. Our results indicate that GAIA shows reasonable agreement with the meteor radar observations during the winter season, whereas WACCM-X(SD) shows better agreement with the radars for the hemispheric zonal summer wind reversal, which is more consistent with the meteor radar observations. The free-running UA-ICON tends to show similar winds and tides compared to WACCM-X(SD).

Rising emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) have led to tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling over recent decades. As a thermodynamic consequence, the troposphere has expanded and the rise of the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere, has been suggested as one of the most robust fingerprints of anthropogenic climate change. Conversely, at altitudes above ∼55 km (in the mesosphere and thermosphere) observational and modeling evidence indicates a downward shift of the height of pressure levels or decreasing density at fixed altitudes. The layer in between, the stratosphere, has not been studied extensively with respect to changes of its global structure. Here we show that this atmospheric layer has contracted substantially over the last decades, and that the main driver for this are increasing concentrations of GHG. Using data from coupled chemistry-climate models we show that this trend will continue and the mean climatological thickness of the stratosphere will decrease by 1.3 km following representative concentration pathway 6.0 by 2080. We also demonstrate that the stratospheric contraction is not only a response to cooling, as changes in both tropopause and stratopause pressure contribute. Moreover, its short emergence time (less than 15 years) makes it a novel and independent indicator of GHG induced climate change.

Meteor radars have become widely used instruments to study atmospheric dynamics, particularly in the 70 to 110 km altitude region. These systems have been proven to provide reliable and continuous measurements of horizontal winds in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. Recently, there have been many attempts to utilize specular and/or transverse scatter meteor measurements to estimate vertical winds and vertical wind variability. In this study we investigate potential biases in vertical wind estimation that are intrinsic to the meteor radar observation geometry and scattering mechanism, and we introduce a mathematical debiasing process to mitigate them. This process makes use of a spatiotemporal Laplace filter, which is based on a generalized Tikhonov regularization. Vertical winds obtained from this retrieval algorithm are compared to UA-ICON model data. This comparison reveals good agreement in the statistical moments of the vertical velocity distributions. Furthermore, we present the first observational indications of a forward scatter wind bias. It appears to be caused by the scattering center's apparent motion along the meteor trajectory when the meteoric plasma column is drifted by the wind. The hypothesis is tested by a radiant mapping of two meteor showers. Finally, we introduce a new retrieval algorithm providing a physically and mathematically sound solution to derive vertical winds and wind variability from multistatic meteor radar networks such as the Nordic Meteor Radar Cluster (NORDIC) and the Chilean Observation Network De meteOr Radars (CONDOR). The new retrieval is called 3DVAR+DIV and includes additional diagnostics such as the horizontal divergence and relative vorticity to ensure a physically consistent solution for all 3D winds in spatially resolved domains. Based on this new algorithm we obtained vertical velocities in the range of w = ± 1–2 m s⁻¹ for most of the analyzed data during 2 years of collection, which is consistent with the values reported from general circulation models (GCMs) for this timescale and spatial resolution.

We have found a stratospheric area of anomalously low annual cycle amplitude and specific dynamics in the stratosphere over the northeastern Pacific–eastern Asia coastal region. Using GPS radio occultation density profiles from the Formosat Satellite Mission 3/Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC), we have discovered an internal gravity wave (IGW) activity and breaking hotspot in this region. Conditions supporting orographic wave sourcing and propagation were found. Other possible sources of wave activity in this region are listed. The reasons why this particular IGW activity hotspot was not discovered before as well as why the specific dynamics of this region have not been pointed out are discussed together with the weaknesses of using the mean potential energy as a wave activity proxy. Possible consequences of the specific dynamics in this region on the middle atmospheric dynamics and transport are outlined.

When orographic gravity waves (OGWs) break, they dissipate their momentum and energy and thereby influence the thermal and dynamical structure of the atmosphere. This OGW forcing mainly takes place in the middle atmosphere. It is zonally asymmetric and strongly intermittent. So-called “OGW hotspot regions” have been shown to exert a large impact on the total wave forcing, in particular in the lower stratosphere (LS). Motivated by this we investigate the asymmetrical distribution of the three-dimensional OGW drag (OGWD) for selected hotspot regions in the specified dynamics simulation of the chemistry-climate model CMAM (Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model) for the period 1979–2010. As an evaluation, we first compare zonal mean OGW fluxes and GW drag (GWD) of the model simulation with observations and reanalyses in the Northern Hemisphere. We find an overestimation of GW momentum fluxes and GWD in the model's LS, presumably attributable to the GW parameterizations which are tuned to correctly represent the dynamics of the Southern Hemisphere. In the following, we define three hotspot regions which are of particular interest for OGW studies, namely the Himalayas, the Rocky Mountains and East Asia. The GW drags in these hotspot regions emerge as strongly intermittent, a result that can also quantitatively be corroborated with observational studies. Moreover, a peak-detection algorithm is applied to capture the intermittent and zonally asymmetric character of OGWs breaking in the LS and to assess composites for the three hotspot regions. This shows that LS peak OGW events can have opposing effects on the upper stratosphere and mesosphere depending on the hotspot region. Our analysis constitutes a new method for studying the intermittency of OGWs, thereby facilitating a new possibility to assess the effect of particular OGW hotspot regions on middle atmospheric dynamics.

This study focusses on the variability of temperature, ozone and circulation characteristics in the stratosphere and lower mesosphere with regard to the influence of the 11-year solar cycle. It is based on attribution analysis using multiple nonlinear techniques (support vector regression, neural networks) besides the multiple linear regression approach. The analysis was applied to several current reanalysis data sets for the 1979–2013 period, including MERRA, ERA-Interim and JRA-55, with the aim to compare how these types of data resolve especially the double-peaked solar response in temperature and ozone variables and the consequent changes induced by these anomalies. Equatorial temperature signals in the tropical stratosphere were found to be in qualitative agreement with previous attribution studies, although the agreement with observational results was incomplete, especially for JRA-55. The analysis also pointed to the solar signal in the ozone data sets (i.e. MERRA and ERA-Interim) not being consistent with the observed double-peaked ozone anomaly extracted from satellite measurements. The results obtained by linear regression were confirmed by the nonlinear approach through all data sets, suggesting that linear regression is a relevant tool to sufficiently resolve the solar signal in the middle atmosphere. The seasonal evolution of the solar response was also discussed in terms of dynamical causalities in the winter hemispheres. The hypothetical mechanism of a weaker Brewer–Dobson circulation at solar maxima was reviewed together with a discussion of polar vortex behaviour.