The millennium water vapour drop in chemistry-climate model simulations

This study investigates the abrupt and severe water vapour decline in the stratosphere beginning in year 2000 (the "millennium water vapour drop") and other similar stratospheric water vapour drops by means of various simulations with the state-of-the-art Chemistry-Climate Model (CCM) EMAC (ECHAM/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry Model). The CCM EMAC is able to reproduce the signature and pattern of the water vapour disturbances in agreement with those derived from satellite observations. Model data confirm that this extraordinary water vapour decline is in particular obvious in the tropical lower stratosphere. The starting point of the severe water vapour drop is identified in the tropical lower stratosphere and the start date is found to be in the early days of 2000. We show that the driving forces for this significant drop in water vapour mixing ratios are tropical sea surface temperature changes due to a preceding strong El Niño–Southern Oscillation event (1997/98), which was followed by a La Niña and supported by the prevailing western phase of the equatorial stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) at that time. This constellation of ENSO and QBO obviously lead to the outstanding anomalies in meteorological quantities which are identified in the equatorial atmosphere: (a) a distinct warming (up to 1 K) of the tropical upper troposphere (200 to 120 hPa) beginning in mid-1997 and lasting for about one and a half years, (b) a strong warming (up to 2.5 K) of the tropical lower stratosphere (100 to 50 hPa), beginning in early 1999 and ending in early 2000, and (c) a significantly enhanced upwelling at the tropopause in the late 1990s and an obviously reduced upwelling around the year 2000 followed by a period of enhanced upwelling again. These dynamically induced changes are unambiguously connected to the stratospheric water vapour anomaly. Similarly strong water vapour reductions are also found in other years, and seem to be a~typical feature after strong combined El Niño/La Niña events, if the QBO west phase has prolonged down to the tropopause.