Seasonal differences of vertical-transport efficiency in the tropical tropopause layer: On the interplay between tropical deep convection, large-scale vertical ascent, and horizontal circulations

These features combine to make monsoon-related convection over the Indian subcontinent the dominant source of new air during summer. In contrast, winter sources are spread over the southern continents and the western Pacific Ocean. These seasonal differences imply that air entering the tropical stratosphere during summer is older but might nevertheless be more polluted than air entering during winter.

While poor data sampling in the TTL makes it difficult to validate our results, they are bolstered by favorable comparisons with previous studies of the TTL, by sensitivity tests that reveal important dynamical influences on surface-to-stratospheric transport, and by the robustness of dynamical interactions that systematically associate deep convection with anticyclonic circulations and strong radiative heating in the TTL.

Sensitivity experiments suggest that the aforementioned seasonal differences are sensitive to strong "large-scale" (on global space scales and seasonal time scales) perturbations. In particular, uncertainties in the vertical motion fields constrain our ability to draw definitive conclusions. However, trajectory statistics are not sensitive to small-scale perturbations, with the encouraging implication that our results are primarily associated with those features of the circulation that are the most likely to be robust.