In Situ Measurements of Stratospheric Ozone on Long-Duration Balloons during Concordiasi

• Main Authors: Avallone, L., Kalnajs, L., Schofield, Robyn
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Antarctic; Austral; McMurdo Station; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/22991/; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.35769

The discovery of an annual, austral spring decrease in column abundances of ozone over the Antarctic continent, now popularly known as the ozone hole, served as a bellwether regarding the impact of anthropogenic emissions on the global atmosphere. While considerable progress has been made during the past two decades, calculations of the behavior of polar stratospheric ozone are still limited by uncertainties in both chemical and dynamical factors. These uncertainties also affect predictions of the future state of stratospheric ozone such as the point at which the Antarctic ozone hole recovers and the extent to which climate changes may impact ozone abundances.The first quasi-Lagrangian measurements of stratospheric ozone will be made from Concordiasi long duration stratospheric balloons, deployed from McMurdo Station. The University of Colorado team has designed and built ultraviolet photometers to meet the requirements of long life, low power consumption and precision necessary to resolve anticipated ozone changes. The observations from the Concordiasi balloons will provide a detailed picture of ozone loss in individual air masses over extended periods of time. Data obtained from these balloon flights will be compared with calculations of photochemical ozone loss from a sophisticated trajectory model, initialized with observed temperature, pressure and location.