Stratospheric water vapor (SWV) is a greenhouse gas that has a significant, yet uncertain, impact on the Earth’s climate through its radiative effect and feedback. As the climate changes, it is thus critical to monitor and understand changes in SWV. NASA’s Microwave Limb Sounding (MLS) aboard the Aura satellite has observed SWV since 2004 but will soon reach end of life. The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) missions observe SWV as well, with the SAGE III instrument operating on the International Space Station (ISS) since 2017. We use the constituent data assimilation capabilities of NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) to demonstrate that the up to 30 SAGE III/ISS profiles each day provide a useful constraint on SWV over the observed midlatitudes and tropics. We conclude that assimilating SAGE III/ISS SWV into GEOS can continue the SWV climate data record of Aura MLS.

In the face of a changing climate, the understanding, predictions and projections of natural and human systems are increasingly crucial to prepare and cope with extremes and cascading hazards, determine unexpected feedbacks and potential tipping points, inform long-term adaptation strategies, and guide mitigation approaches. Increasingly complex socio-economic systems require enhanced predictive information to support advanced practices. Such new predictive challenges drive the need to fully capitalize on ambitious scientific and technological opportunities. These include the unrealized potential for very high-resolution modeling of global-to-local Earth system processes across timescales, a reduction of model biases, enhanced integration of human systems and the Earth Systems, better quantification of predictability and uncertainties; expedited science-to-service pathways and co-production of actionable information with stakeholders. Enabling technological opportunities include exascale computing, advanced data storage, novel observations and powerful data analytics, including artificial intelligence and machine learning. Looking to generate community discussions on how to accelerate progress on U.S. climate predictions and projections, representatives of Federally-funded U.S. modeling groups outline here perspectives on a six-pillar national approach grounded in climate science that builds on the strengths of the U.S. modeling community and agency goals. This calls for an unprecedented level of coordination to capitalize on transformative opportunities, augmenting and complementing current modeling center capabilities and plans to support agency missions. Tangible outcomes include projections with horizontal spatial resolutions finer than 10 km, representing extremes and associated risks in greater detail, reduced model errors, better predictability estimates, and more customized projections to support the next generation of climate services.

During polar spring, periods of elevated tropospheric bromine known as “bromine explosion events” are associated with near complete removal of surface ozone. The satellite-based Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) provides total column measurements of bromine monoxide (BrO) with daily global coverage. In this study, we estimate springtime bromine emissions over the Arctic using OMI retrievals of BrO in combination with the GEOS-Chem (version 12.0.1) chemical mechanism, run online within the GEOS Earth System Model. Tropospheric hotspots of BrO are identified over the Arctic where the difference between OMI and modeled columns of BrO exceeds the bias observed over regions not impacted by bromine explosion emissions. The resulting hotspot columns are a lower-limit estimate for the portion of the OMI BrO signal attributable to bromine explosion events and are well correlated with BrO measured in the lower troposphere by buoy-based instruments. Daily flux of molecular bromine is calculated from hotspot columns of BrO based on the modeled atmospheric lifetime of inorganic bromine in the lower troposphere and partitioning of bromine species into BrO at OMI overpass time. Following the application of Arctic emissions in GEOS-Chem, OMI-based tropospheric hotspots of BrO are successfully modeled for 2008 – 2012 and periods of isolated, large (> 50%) decreases in surface ozone are captured during April and May. While this technique does not fully capture the low ozone observed at coastal stations, if a lower threshold is used to identify tropospheric hotspots of BrO, the representation of surface ozone in late spring is improved.

The 15 January 2022 eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai underwater volcano injected a record amount of water directly into the stratosphere. This study attempts to quantify this impact on the temperature, as well as the subsequent changes to the stratospheric circulation, during the months following the eruption based on reanalysis fields. The extreme nature of the temperature, wind, and circulation changes are tracked through comparisons of the first six months of 2022 with the past 42 years. Examination of the data assimilation process shows that at 20 hPa the thermal observations are forcing temperatures to cool significantly, compensating for the absence of the excess stratospheric moisture in the model used for the reanalysis, resulting in unusually low temperatures. In response to this cooling the atmosphere adjusts by creating strong westerly winds above the temperature anomaly and large changes to the downward and poleward mean meridional circulation.

The NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Composition Forecast (GEOS-CF) provides recent estimates and five-day forecasts of atmospheric composition to the public in near-real time. To do this, the GEOS Earth system model is coupled with the GEOS-Chem tropospheric-stratospheric unified chemistry extension (UCX) to represent composition from the surface to the top of the GEOS atmosphere (0.01 hPa). The GEOS-CF system is described, including updates made to the GEOS-Chem UCX mechanism within GEOS-CF for improved representation of stratospheric chemistry. Comparisons are made against balloon, lidar and satellite observations for stratospheric composition, including measurements of ozone (O3) and important nitrogen and chlorine species related to stratospheric O3 recovery. The GEOS-CF nudges the stratospheric O3 towards the GEOS Forward Processing (GEOS FP) assimilated O3 product; as a result the stratospheric O3 in the GEOS-CF historical estimate agrees well with observations. During abnormal dynamical and chemical environments such as the 2020 polar vortexes, the GEOS-CF O3 forecasts are more realistic than GEOS FP O3 forecasts because of the inclusion of the complex GEOS-Chem UCX chemistry. Overall, the spatial pattern of the GEOS-CF simulated concentrations of stratospheric composition agrees well with satellite observations. However, there are notable biases – such as low NOx and HNO3 in the polar regions and generally low HCl throughout the stratosphere – and future improvements to the chemistry mechanism and emissions are discussed. GEOS-CF is a new tool for the research community and instrument teams observing trace gases in the stratosphere and troposphere, providing near-real-time three-dimensional gridded information on atmospheric composition.