2012: An observational analysis of Southern Hemisphere tropical expansion

[1] Historical radiosonde data are analyzed using the tropopause height frequency method to investigate the variation of the Southern Hemisphere tropical edge from 1979/80–2010/11, independently of reanalysis-derived data. Averaged across the hemisphere we identify a tropical expansion trend of 0.41 0.37 deg dec1, significant at the 90 % level. A comparison with four reanalyses shows generally consistent results between radiosondes and reanalyses. Estimated rates of tropical expansion in the SH are broadly similar, as is the interannual variability. However, notable differences remain. Some of these differences are related to the methodology used to identify the height of the tropopause in the reanalyses, which produces inconsistent results in the subtropics. Differences between radiosondes and reanalyses are also more manifest in data-poor regions. In these regions, the reanalyses are not fully constrained, allowing the internal model dynamics to drive the variability. The performance of the reanalyses varies temporally compared to the radiosonde data. These differences are particularly apparen