Identification

Title

Mixing characteristics within the tropopause transition layer over the Asian summer monsoon region based on ozone and water vapor sounding data

Abstract

The structure of the tropopause transition layer (TTL) over the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) anticyclone is analyzed on the basis of high-resolution balloon soundings of temperature, ozone, and water vapor at Kunming and Lhasa, China during 11 summer monsoon seasons between 2009 and 2019. Two definitions of the TTL, one based on thermal structure and one based on tracer correlations of O-3 and H2O, are analyzed and compared. In tracer-tracer space, the air masses of mixed stratospheric and tropospheric characteristics are identified by using the O-3-H2O correlations. The mixed air formed a transitional layer and shows strong spatial variation in the altitude space. Statistical result shows that the altitude range of mixed air parcels spans a layer of approximately 5.5 km depth between 12.5 km and 18 km. This vertical distribution of mixed air masses is basically consistent with thermally-based TTL, which takes the level of minimum stability (LMS) and the cold point tropopause (CPT) as its lower and upper boundaries, respectively. The thermal definition regards the TTL as a thermal transition zone, but does not consider the tracer mixing features between stratosphere and troposphere. Tracer correlations can identify the mixed air mass, which is a basic feature of the TTL, whether they are from the range of the thermally-based TTL, or below the LMS, or above the CPT. Based on the O-3-H2O correlations, statistical analysis shows that about 30%-50% of air masses between the LMS and the CPT are identified as mixed. And up to 1-1.5 km above the CPT, a small fraction of air masses is also mixed, which means that air masses from the troposphere can be lifted and mixed into the free stratosphere within the ASM anticyclone region.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7pz5dfp

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

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keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

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Temporal extent

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Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2022-06-15T00:00:00Z

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Conformity

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Use constraints

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None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

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