Evaluation of Polar Winter Mesopause Wind in WACCMX+DART

This work evaluates zonal winds in both hemispheres near the polar winter mesopause in the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) with thermosphere‐ionosphere eXtension combined with data assimilation using the Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART) (WACCMX+DART). We compare 14 years (2006–2019) of WACCMX+DART zonal mean zonal winds near 90 km to zonal mean zonal winds derived from Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) geopotential height measurements during Arctic mid‐winter. 10 years (2008–2017) of WACCMX+DART zonal mean zonal winds are compared to SABER in the Antarctic mid‐winter. It is well known that WACCM, and WACCM‐X, zonal winds at the polar winter mesopause exhibit a strong easterly (westward) bias. One explanation for this is that the models omit higher order gravity waves (GWs), and thus the eastward drag caused by these GWs. We show for the first time that the model winds near the polar winter mesopause are in closer agreement with SABER observations when the winds near the stratopause are weak or reversed. The model and observed mesosphere and lower thermosphere winds agree most during dynamically disturbed times often associated with minor or major sudden stratospheric warming events. Results show that the deceleration of the stratospheric and mesospheric polar night jet allows enough eastward GWs to propagate into the mesosphere, driving eastward zonal winds that are in agreement with the observations. Thus, in both hemispheres, the winter polar night jet speed and direction near the stratopause may be a useful proxy for model fidelity in the polar winter upper mesosphere.