Current Science

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Detection of Solar Cycle Signal in the Tropospheric Temperature using COSMIC Data


Affiliations
1 Radio and Atmospheric Physics Lab, Rajdhani College, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 015, India
2 Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital 263 002, India
3 Department of Applied Physics, Delhi Technical University, Delhi 110 042, India
4 Department of Geophysics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606850, India
 

Influence of the solar cycle on temperature structure is examined using radio occultation measurements by COSMIC/FORMASAT-3 satellite. Observations from January 2007 to December 2015 comprising 3,764,728 occultations, which are uniformly spread over land and sea, have been used to study temperature changes mainly in the troposphere along with the solar cycle over 60°N–60°S geographic latitudes. It was a challenging task to identify the height at which the solar cycle signal could be observed in temperature perturbations as different atmospheric processes contribute towards temperature variability. Using a high spatial resolution dataset from COSMIC we are able to detect solar cycle signal in the zonal mean temperature profiles near surface at 2 km and upward. A consistent rise in the interannual variation of temperature was observed along with the solar cycle. The change in the temperature structure showed a latitudinal variation from southern to northern hemisphere over the period 2007–2015 with a significant positive influence of sunspot numbers in the solar cycle. It can be concluded that the solar cycle induces changes in temperature by as much as 1.5°C. However, solar cycle signal in the stratospheric region could not be identified as the region is dominated by large-scale dynamical motions like quasi-biennial oscillation which suppress the influence of solar signal on temperature perturbations due to its quasi-periodic nature.

Keywords

Radio Occultation, Solar Cycle, Sunspot Number, Tropospheric Temperature.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Rind, D., Lean, J. and Healy, R., Simulated time-dependent climate response to solar radiative forcing since 1600. J. Geophys. Res., 1999, 104, 1973–1990.

  • Shindell, D., Rind, D., Balachandran, J., Lean, J. and Lonergran, P., Solar cycle variability ozone and climate, Science, 1999, 284, 305–308.

  • Meehl, G. A., Washington, W. M. and Wigley, T. M. L., Arblaster, J. M. and Dai, A., Solar and green house gas forcing and climate response in the twentieth century. J. Climate, 2003, 16, 426–444.

  • Lean, J., Rottman, G., Harder, J. and Kopp, G., SORCE contributions to new understanding of global change and solar variability. Sol. Phys., 2005, 230(1–2), 27–53; doi:10.1007/s11207-005-1527-2.

  • Larkin, A., Haigh, J. D. and Djavidnia, S., The effect of solar UV irradiance variations on the Earth’s atmosphere. Space Sci. Rev., 2000, 94, 199–214.

  • Keckhut, P., Cagnazzo, C., Chanin, M. L., Claud, C. and Hauchecorne, A., The 11-year solar-cycle effects on temperature in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere. Part I: Assessment of observations. J. Atmos. Solar-Terrest. Phys., 2004, 67, 940–947; http://dx. doi.org/10.1016/j.jastp.2005.01.008.

  • Hood, L. L., Effects of solar UV variability on the stratosphere in solar variability and its effects on climate. Geophys. Monogr. Ser., 2004, 141, 283–304.

  • Austin, J. et al., Coupled chemistry climate model simulations of the solar cycle in ozone and temperature. J. Geophys. Res., 2008, 113, D11306; doi:10.1029/2007JD009391.

  • Marsh, D. R., Garcia, R. R., Kinnison, D. E., Boville, B. A., Sassi, F., Solomon, S. C. and Matthes, K., Modeling the whole atmosphere response to solar cycle changes in radiative and geomagnetic forcing. J. Geophys. Res., 2007, 112, D23306; doi:10.1029/ 2006JD008306.

  • Randel, W. J. et al., An update of observed stratospheric temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 2009, 114, D02107, doi:10.1029/ 2008JD010421.

  • Dunkerton, T. J., Delisi, D. P. and Baldwin, M. P., Middle atmosphere cooling trend in historical rocketsonde data. Geophys. Res. Lett., 1998, 25, 3371–3374.

  • Keckhut, P. F., Schmidlin, J., Hauchecorne, A. and Chanin, M.-L., Stratospheric and mesospheric cooling trend estimates from US rocketsondes at low latitude stations (8°S–34°N), taking into account instrumental changes and natural variability. J. Atmos. Sol. Terr. Phys., 1999, 61, 447–459.

  • Anthes, R., Rocken, C. and Kuo, Y. H., Applications of COSMIC to meteorology and climate. Terr. Atmos. Ocean Sci., 2000, 11, 115–156.

  • Foelsche, U. et al., Observing upper troposphere–lower stratosphere climate with radio occultation data from the CHAMP satellite. Climate Dyn., 2007, 31(1), 49–65.

  • Kursinski, E. R., Hajj, G. A., Schofield, J. T., Linfield, R. P. and Hard, R. R., Observing earth’s atmosphere with radio occultation measurements using the global positioning system. J. Geophys. Res., 1997, 102, 23429–23465.

  • Hajj, G. A., Kursinski, E. R., Romans, L. J., Bertiger, W. I. and Leroy, S. S., A technical description of atmospheric sounding by GPS occultation. J. Atmosph. Solar-Terr. Phys., 2002, 64(4), 451– 469; https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-236826(01)00114-6.

  • Hajj, G. A., Lee, I. C., Pi, X., Romans, L. J., Schreiner, W. S., Straus, P. R. and Wang, C., COSMIC GPS ionospheric sensing and space weather. Terr. Atmosp. Ocean. Sci., 2000, 11(1), 235– 272.

  • Kuo, Y.-H., Sokolovskiy, S. V., Anthes, R. A. and Vandenberghe, F., Assimilation of GPS radio occultation data for numerical weather prediction. Terr. Atmosp. Ocean. Sci., 2000, 11(1), 157– 186.

  • Anthes, R. A. et al., The COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 mission: early results, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 2008, 89, 313–333; doi:10.1175/BAMS-89-3-313.

  • Ho, S. P. et al., Estimating the uncertainty of using GPS radio occultation data for climate monitoring: intercomparison of CHAMP refractivity climate records from 2002 to 2006 from different data centers. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmosp., 2009, 114, 20; doi:10.1029/2009JD011969.

  • Dhaka, S. K., Kumar, V., Choudhary, R. K., Ho, S. P., Takahashi, M. and Yoden, S., Indications of a strong dynamical coupling between the polar and tropical regions during the sudden stratospheric warming event January 2009: a study based on COSMIC/ FORMASAT-3 satellite temperature data, Atmos. Res., 2015, 166, 60–69; doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2015.06.008.

  • Kumar, V., Dhaka, S. K., Singh, N., Singh, V., Reddy, K. K. and Chun, H. Y., Impact of inter-seasonal solar variability on the association of lower troposphere and cold point tropopause in the tropics: observations using RO data from COSMIC. Atmos. Res., 2017, 198, 216–225; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2017.08.026.

  • Kishore, P., Namboothiri, S. P., Jiang, J. H., Sivakumar, V. and Igarashi, K., Global temperature estimates in the troposphere and stratosphere: a validation study of COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 measurements. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 2009, 9, 897–908.

  • Chun, H.-Y., Goh, J.-S., Song, I.-S. and Ricciardulli, L., Latitudinal variations of convective source and propagation condition of inertio-gravity waves in the tropics. J. Atmos. Sci., 2007, 64, 1603–1618.

  • Kumar, V., Dhaka, S. K., Reddy, K. K., Gupta, A., Prasad, S. B., Panwar, V. and Singh, N., Impact of quasi-biennial oscillation on the inter-annual variability of the tropopause height and temperature in the tropics: a study using COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 observations. Atmos. Res., 2014, 139, 62–70; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2013.12.014.

  • Randel, W. J., Wu, F. and Gaffen, D. J., Interannual variability of the tropical tropopause derived from radiosonde data and NCEP reanalyses. J. Geophys. Res., 2000, 105(D12). 15509–15523.

  • Marsh, N. D. and Svensmark, H., Low cloud properties influenced by cosmic rays. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2000, 85, 5004–5007.


Abstract Views: 227

PDF Views: 73




  • Detection of Solar Cycle Signal in the Tropospheric Temperature using COSMIC Data

Abstract Views: 227  |  PDF Views: 73

Authors

V. Kumar
Radio and Atmospheric Physics Lab, Rajdhani College, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 015, India
S. K. Dhaka
Radio and Atmospheric Physics Lab, Rajdhani College, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 015, India
V. Panwar
Radio and Atmospheric Physics Lab, Rajdhani College, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 015, India
Narendra Singh
Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital 263 002, India
A. S. Rao
Department of Applied Physics, Delhi Technical University, Delhi 110 042, India
Shristy Malik
Department of Applied Physics, Delhi Technical University, Delhi 110 042, India
S. Yoden
Department of Geophysics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606850, India

Abstract


Influence of the solar cycle on temperature structure is examined using radio occultation measurements by COSMIC/FORMASAT-3 satellite. Observations from January 2007 to December 2015 comprising 3,764,728 occultations, which are uniformly spread over land and sea, have been used to study temperature changes mainly in the troposphere along with the solar cycle over 60°N–60°S geographic latitudes. It was a challenging task to identify the height at which the solar cycle signal could be observed in temperature perturbations as different atmospheric processes contribute towards temperature variability. Using a high spatial resolution dataset from COSMIC we are able to detect solar cycle signal in the zonal mean temperature profiles near surface at 2 km and upward. A consistent rise in the interannual variation of temperature was observed along with the solar cycle. The change in the temperature structure showed a latitudinal variation from southern to northern hemisphere over the period 2007–2015 with a significant positive influence of sunspot numbers in the solar cycle. It can be concluded that the solar cycle induces changes in temperature by as much as 1.5°C. However, solar cycle signal in the stratospheric region could not be identified as the region is dominated by large-scale dynamical motions like quasi-biennial oscillation which suppress the influence of solar signal on temperature perturbations due to its quasi-periodic nature.

Keywords


Radio Occultation, Solar Cycle, Sunspot Number, Tropospheric Temperature.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv115%2Fi12%2F2232-2239