Sensitivity of the Residual Circulation Diagnosed from the UARS Data to the Uncertainties in the Input Fields and to the Inclusion of Aerosols

Abstract

The simultaneous measurements of temperature, aerosol extinction, and concentrations of radiatively active gases by several instruments aboard the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite permit an assessment of the uncertainties in the diagnosed stratospheric heating rates and in the resulting residual circulation. In this paper, measurements taken by the Cryogenic Limb Array Etalon Spectrometer (CLAES) are used to compute the circulation and to compare it against values obtained previously from the measurements obtained by the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS). There is a broad agreement between the two sets of calculations and known biases in either CLAES or MLS ozone and temperature measurements are found to be responsible for the areas of disagreement. The inclusion of aerosols has improved the estimates of the residual circulation in the lower stratosphere during the 1992?93 period covered by CLAES. Present estimates of the aerosol heating are significantly different from those found in other studies, probably as a result of differences in the treatment of tropospheric clouds and in the adopted vertical profiles of aerosol extinction. Moreover, a large uncertainty in these estimates is caused by the uncertainties in the assumed refractive indices for sulfuric acid solutions.