Abstract:

An attempt was made to study the stratospheric sudden warming on Antarctica in August, 1988. In this paper, the variations in total ozone, 30hPa temperature, 30hPa 24-hour temperature change and westly wind are given by using a processing of original data provided by Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition 29 (JARE29). From the preliminary analysis, it's obvious that a sudden warming occurs in lower stratosphere over Syowa Station, in which the 30hPa temperature increases by 40.9℃, from-71.1℃ to-30.2℃, in the period of August 26-30, and maximum 24-hour warming reaches 21.7℃/day. From correlation analysis, good correlations between 30hPa temperature, 30hPa westly wind and total ozone in this sudden warming period are found. In the period of Aug. 15-Sep. 6, 1988, the correlation coefficient of 30 hPa temperature is 0.96 with total ozone and 0.88 with 30 hPa westly wind. This result is very close to that former authors got. In ordor to study the ozone heating role in this sudden warming, the correlation between 30hPa 24-hour temperature variation and total ozone is studied. The correlation is quite different from that between 30 hPa temperature and total ozone. The high correlation coefficient disappears. It's only about 0.03. But during August 15-Sep. 6, the correlation coefficient between 4-day delayed total ozone and 30hPa temperature variation looks to be high, reaching 0.64. This fact means that the ozone heating effect is not the cause of the sudden warming in this period. The ozone variation is only caused by the fluctuation of circulation due to the sudden warming. In order to study the other cause of the sudden warming, for the transfer of planetary-wave enegy, a correlation between the all-layer westly wind speed and sohPa warming is analysed. It can be found that the all-layer westly wind occurs on about August 22,1988, 5-day before the date of the sudden warming. According to the theory of planetary wave, all-layer westly wind supplies the situation for planetary wave in troposphere transferring to stratosphere. The transferring planetary wave energy causes the sudden warming. Therefore, the all-layer westly wind may shows a possibility that the direct cause for this sudden warming is upward transfer of planetary wave in troposphere. Because there is not grided data used in this paper, the further research should be needed to prove the effect of the upward transferring planetary wave on the sudden warming in the stratosphere of Antarctica.