Routes of Transport across the Antarctic Polar Vortex in the Southern Spring

Abstract

Abstract Transport in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica has been studied in the past by means of several approaches, such as contour dynamics or Lyapunov exponents. This paper examines the problem by means of a new Lagrangian descriptor, which is referred to as the function M. The focus is on the southern spring of 2005, which allows for a comparison with previous analyses based on Lyapunov exponents. With the methodology based on the function M, a much sharper depiction of key Lagrangian features is achieved and routes of large-scale horizontal transport across the vortex edge are captured. These results highlight the importance of lobe dynamics as a transport mechanism across the Antarctic polar vortex.