Discovery of a New Ozone Hole over the Tropics

• Main Author: Lu, Qing-Bin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: arXiv 2021
• Subjects: Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.ao-ph; Atomic and Molecular Clusters physics.atm-clus; Chemical Physics physics.chem-ph; FOS Physical sciences; Arctic; Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; Climate change
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2112.14977; https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.14977

This paper reveals a new ozone hole that exists in the lower stratosphere over the tropics (30degN-30degS) across the seasons since the 1980s, where an ozone hole is defined as an area of ozone loss larger than 25% compared with the undisturbed atmosphere. The depth of this all-season tropical ozone hole is comparable to that of the well-known springtime ozone hole over Antarctica, while its area is about seven times that of the latter. At the center of the deepest tropical or Antarctic ozone hole, approximately 80% of the normal ozone value is depleted, whereas annual mean ozone depletion in the lower stratosphere over the tropics due to the coldest temperature is about 1.6 times that over Antarctica and is about 7.7 times that over the Arctic. The whole-year ozone hole over the tropics could cause a serious global concern as it can lead to increases in ground-level ultraviolet radiation and affect 50% of Earth surface area, which is home to approximately 50% of the world population. Moreover, since ozone loss is well-known to lead to stratospheric cooling, the presence of the all-season tropical ozone hole and the seasonal polar ozone holes is equivalent to the formation of three temperature holes in the global lower stratosphere. These findings will play a far-reaching role in understanding fundamental atmospheric processes and global climate change. : 20 pages, 10 figures