Breakdown of the Polar Stratospheric Vortex

The breakdown of the Stratospheric Polar Night Vortex is an atmospheric event that occurs once or twice each year in the polar wintertime stratosphere. As the polar vortex is formed, sharp gradients of potential vorticity at the vortex edge isolate polar air from the air at lower latitudes, producing conditions favorable for wintertime polar ozone depletion.

Rossby waves propagating upward from the troposphere along the edge of the Polar Vortex grows exponentially in amplitude, eventually tearing the vortex apart.The animations depict the flow of the Polar Vortex by visualizing Potential Vorticity (a variable that acts as a tracer) over the 16-day simulation. In the second and succeeding images, the height of the data has been greatly exaggerated to better show the rich vertical structure contained in the vortex.