Whole Atmosphere Modeling of the Middle and Upper Atmosphere Variability during Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (Invited Presentation)

Recent developments in whole atmosphere modeling, including data assimilation, have enabled a comprehensive view of how sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) events generate variability in the middle and upper atmosphere. Using the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model eXtended (WACCMX) version with data assimilation provided by the Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART) ensemble Kalman filter, we present results illustrating the effects of the 2009 SSW on the middle and upper atmosphere. The WACCMX+DART analysis fields effectively capture the chemical and dynamical variability in the stratosphere and mesosphere, and also reproduce the ionospheric variability during the SSW. A series of hindcast experiments are performed in order to assess the predictability of the middle and upper atmosphere disturbances that occurred during the SSW. The hindcast experiments demonstrate that the SSW can be predicted ~10-days in advance, and that the dominant features of the ionosphere variability can be forecast ~10-20 days in advance. These experiments illustrate that through incorporating the forecast skill of the lower atmosphere, the forecast range of the middle and upper atmosphere can potentially be extended.