Quantifying the Summertime Response of the Austral Jet Stream and Hadley Cell to Stratospheric Ozone and Greenhouse Gases

Abstract The impact of anthropogenic forcing on the summertime austral circulation is assessed across three climate model datasets: the Chemistry–Climate Model Validation activity 2 and phases 3 and 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Changes in stratospheric ozone and greenhouse gases impact the Southern Hemisphere in this season, and a simple framework based on temperature trends in the lower polar stratosphere and upper tropical troposphere is developed to separate their effects. It suggests that shifts in the jet stream and Hadley cell are driven by changes in the upper-troposphere–lower-stratosphere temperature gradient. The mean response is comparable in the three datasets; ozone has chiefly caused the poleward shift observed in recent decades, while ozone and greenhouse gases largely offset each other in the future. The multimodel mean perspective, however, masks consi…