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Relationship between lunar tidal enhancements in the equatorial electrojet and stratospheric wind anomalies during stratospheric sudden warmings
  • Tarique Adnan Siddiqui
Tarique Adnan Siddiqui
GFZ Potsdam

Corresponding Author:tarique@ucar.edu

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Abstract

A number of studies in recent years have reported about the lunar tidal enhancements in the equatorial electrojet (EEJ) from ground- and space-based magnetometer measurements during stratospheric sudden warming (SSW) events. In this study, we make use of the ground magnetometer recordings at Huancayo observatory in Peru for the years 1978 – 2013 to derive a relationship between the lunar tidal enhancements in the EEJ and tropospheric eddy heat fluxes at 100 hPa during the SSW events. Tropospheric eddy heat fluxes are used to quantify the amount of wave activity entering the stratosphere. Anomalously large upward wave activity is known to precede the polar vortex breakdown during SSWs. We make use of the superposed epoch analysis method to determine the temporal relations between lunar tidal enhancements and eddy heat flux anomalies during SSWs, in order to demonstrate the causal relationship between these two phenomena. We also compare the lunar tidal enhancements and eddy heat flux anomalies for vortex split and for vortex displaced SSWs. It is found that larger lunar tidal enhancements are recorded for vortex split events, as compared to vortex displaced events. This confirms earlier observation; larger heat flux anomalies are recorded during vortex split SSW events than the heat flux anomalies during vortex displaced SSW events. Further, the temporal relations of lunar tidal enhancements in the EEJ have been compared separately for both the QBO phases and with the phases of the moon with respect to the central epoch of SSWs by means of the superposed epoch analysis approach. The EEJ lunar tidal enhancements in the east phase of QBO are found to be larger than the lunar tidal enhancements in the west phase of QBO. The phase of moon relative to the central SSW epoch also affects the lunar tidal enhancement in the EEJ. It is found that the lunar tidal enhancements are significantly larger when the day of new or full moon lies near the central SSW epoch, as compared to cases when new or full moon occur further away from the central SSW epoch.