Ionospheric anomalies observed on Sept. 15, 2019 over North America
Image: Goncharenko et al., 2021 Ionospheric total electron content anomalies observed on September 15, 2019, over North America.

How a sudden stratospheric warming affected the Northern Hemisphere

July 22, 2021
Categories: Anthea Jane Coster , Geospace , Larisa Goncharenko , Shunrong Zhang
Haystack scientists and colleagues find a stratospheric warming event over Antarctica linked to anomalies in near-Earth space above North America and Europe.

Weather is a tricky science — even more so at very high altitudes, with a mix of plasma and neutral particles.

In sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) — large meteorological disturbances related to the polar vortex in which the polar stratosphere temperature increases as it is affected by the winds around the pole — the polar vortex is weakened. SSWs also have profound atmospheric effects at great distances, causing changes in the hemisphere opposite from the location of the original SSW — changes that extend all the way to the upper thermosphere and ionosphere.

A study published on July 16 in Geophysical Research Letters by MIT Haystack Observatory’s Larisa Goncharenko and colleagues examines the effects of a recent major Antarctic SSW on the Northern Hemisphere by studying changes observed in the upper atmosphere over North America and Europe.

For more, please see the full story at MIT News, as well as the study in Geophysical Research Letters (Goncharenko et al., 2021).

Caption:Ionospheric anomalies observed on Sept. 15, 2019 over North America
Ionospheric anomalies observed on September 15, 2019, over North America. Anomalies are shown for TEC (total electron content) and expressed as percentage compared to the average values for this season. A 50-80 percent increase in TEC observed over western United States is linked to the Antarctic sudden stratospheric warming. The colored areas show where the TEC levels are shifted over North America and Europe in the afternoon; red indicates an increase of up to 80 percent versus the baseline regular levels, and blue indicates a decrease of up to –40 percent versus regular levels.