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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-2688</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>A Triple-Structured Mesospheric Climate Pattern Driven by a Double-Celled Meridional Circulation during the Equinox-Solstice Transition Months of November and May</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Liang</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Liu</surname>
<given-names>Zhongfang</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>11</day>
<month>06</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>32</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Liang Zhang</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2688/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2688/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2688/egusphere-2026-2688.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2688/egusphere-2026-2688.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>The upper mesosphere is a dynamically and chemically complex region where interannual climate variability remains incompletely understood, particularly during the transition months between the equinox and solstice circulation regimes. Using multi-satellite observations from MLS and SABER, we investigate the coupled dynamical-microphysical-chemical-thermal structures during November and May, building on the bottom-up mechanism of &amp;ldquo;upwelling&amp;mdash;water vapor (H&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O)&amp;mdash;ozone (O&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt;)&amp;mdash;temperature&amp;rdquo;. We employ temperature near 80 km (the T80 index) as a proxy for upwelling intensity and identify two distinct centers: a summer polar upwelling and a tropical upwelling. Together they drive a double-celled anomalous meridional circulation that organizes the global climate into a novel triple-structured pattern, with coherent signatures in the summer high-latitude, equatorial, and winter high-latitude regions. A key finding is that hydration occurs below polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) without pronounced dehydration above them. This &amp;ldquo;hydration-without-dehydration&amp;rdquo; configuration, made possible by the weak PMCs typical of November and May, indicates the dominance of the cold-trap effect over the conventional freeze-drying effect. The absence of dehydration further isolates the temperature-dependent ozone kinetic pathway for polar ozone enhancement, a pathway that is otherwise convolved with dehydration effects in stronger PMC seasons. Ozone and atomic oxygen (O) respond to the combined influences of meridional H&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O transport and local thermal forcing, and the resulting radiative and chemical heating governs temperatures near 90 km (T90). These results establish the structure of the transitional climate regime, demonstrating that the shift from symmetric (equinox) to antisymmetric (solstice) variability is mediated by a well-organized, upwelling-driven double-celled circulation.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="32"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Natural Science Foundation of China</funding-source>
<award-id>42025602</award-id>
<award-id>41905059</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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