Separating the role of direct radiative heating and photolysis in modulating the atmospheric response to the amplitude of the 11-year solar cycle forcing

Abstract

The atmospheric response to the 11-year solar cycle is separated into the contributions from changes in direct radiative heating and photolysis rates using specially designed sensitivity simulations with the UM-UKCA (Unified Model coupled to the United Kingdom Chemistry and Aerosol model) chemistry–climate model. We perform a number of idealised time-slice experiments under perpetual solar maximum (SMAX) and minimum conditions (SMIN), and we find that contributions from changes in direct heating and photolysis rates are both important for determining the stratospheric shortwave heating, temperature and ozone responses to the amplitude of the 11-year solar cycle. The combined effects of the processes are found to be largely additive in the tropics but nonadditive in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) high latitudes during the dynamically active season. Our results indicate that, in contrast to the original mechanism proposed in the literature, the solar-induced changes in the horizontal shortwave heating rate gradients not only in autumn/early winter but throughout the dynamically active season are important for modulating the dynamical response to changes in solar forcing. In spring, these gradients are strongly influenced by the shortwave heating anomalies at higher southern latitudes, which are closely linked to the concurrent changes in ozone. In addition, our simulations indicate differences in the winter SH dynamical responses between the experiments. We suggest a couple of potential drivers of the simulated differences, i.e. the role of enhanced zonally asymmetric ozone heating brought about by the increased solar-induced ozone levels under SMAX and/or sensitivity of the polar dynamical response to the altitude of the anomalous radiative tendencies. All in all, our results suggest that solar-induced changes in ozone, both in the tropics/mid-latitudes and the polar regions, are important for modulating the SH dynamical response to the 11-year solar cycle. In addition, the markedly nonadditive character of the SH polar vortex response simulated in austral spring highlights the need for consistent model implementation of the solar cycle forcing in both the radiative heating and photolysis schemes.