Climate

Trends in the global tropopause thickness revealed by radiosondes

  1. Sha Feng1,2,
  2. Yunfei Fu1,*,
  3. Qingnong Xiao3

Article first published online: 20 OCT 2012

DOI: 10.1029/2012GL053460

Issue

Geophysical Research Letters

Geophysical Research Letters

Volume 39, Issue 20, 28 October 2012

Additional Information

How to Cite

Feng, S., Y. Fu, and Q. Xiao (2012), Trends in the global tropopause thickness revealed by radiosondes, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L20706, doi:10.1029/2012GL053460.

Author Information

  1. 1

    Laboratory of Satellite Remote Sensing and Climate Environment, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Anhui, China

  2. 2

    College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, Florida, USA

  3. 3

    Center for Severe Weather Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA

*Corresponding author: Y. Fu, Laboratory of Satellite Remote Sensing and Climate Environment, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. (fyf@ustc.edu.cn)

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 20 OCT 2012
  2. Article first published online: 20 OCT 2012
  3. Manuscript Accepted: 18 SEP 2012
  4. Manuscript Revised: 11 SEP 2012
  5. Manuscript Received: 7 AUG 2012

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Keywords:

  • climatology;
  • thickness;
  • trends;
  • tropopause layer

[1] The first global trends in the thickness of the tropopause layer (TL) are analyzed based on radiosonde data in the Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA) for the period of 1965–2004. It reveals that TL has been thickening for the entire globe with positive trends of 0.16 ± 0.12 km/decade during this period. Statistically significant thickening is observed in the tropics, North Hemisphere (NH) extratropics, and NH poles. Accompanied by overall cooling of −0.58 ± 0.40 K/decade in TL's top, remarkable rising trends of 0.35 ± 0.29 km/decade are observed in the correspoding height. However, the anti-correlation of the trends in the tropopause temperature and the corresponding height is not observed in its lower boundary, namely the first lapse rate tropopause (LRT), for all the latitude bands as suggested by the previous studies. The results imply that the temperature of the TL is primarily couple with the height of its upper boundary as the thickness of the TL is more correlated with the temperature of the lower stratosphere than with the tempeature of the upper troposphere. Long-term changes in TL may in turn carry more information how tropopause change in response to climate change than in the sharp “tropopause surface” only.

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