Modelling the effect of denitrification on polar ozone depletion for Arctic winter 2004/2005

A three-dimensional (3-D) chemical transport model (CTM), SLIMCAT, has been used to quantify the effect of denitrification on ozone loss for the Arctic winter 2004/2005. The simulated HNO 3 is found to be highly sensitive to the polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) scheme used in the model. Here the stan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Main Authors: W. Feng, M. P. Chipperfield, S. Davies, G. W. Mann, K. S. Carslaw, S. Dhomse, L. Harvey, C. Randall, M. L. Santee
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2011
Subjects:
Physics
QC1-999
Chemistry
QD1-999
Arctic
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-6559-2011
https://doaj.org/article/9e8c7e48fac944a2b1480f12d50e762f
Description
Summary:A three-dimensional (3-D) chemical transport model (CTM), SLIMCAT, has been used to quantify the effect of denitrification on ozone loss for the Arctic winter 2004/2005. The simulated HNO 3 is found to be highly sensitive to the polar stratospheric cloud (PSC) scheme used in the model. Here the standard SLIMCAT full chemistry model, which uses a thermodynamic equilibrium PSC scheme, overpredicts the ozone loss for Arctic winter 2004/2005 due to the overestimation of denitrification and stronger chlorine activation than observed. A model run with a coupled detailed microphysical denitrification scheme, DLAPSE (Denitrification by Lagrangian Particle Sedimentation), is less denitrified than the standard model run and better reproduces the observed HNO 3 as measured by Airborne SUbmillimeter Radiometer (ASUR) and Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) instruments. Overall, denitrification is responsible for a ~30 % enhancement in O 3 depletion compared with simulations without denitrification for Arctic winter 2004/2005, which is slightly larger than the inferred impact of denitrification on Arctic ozone loss for previous winters from different CTMs simulations. The overestimated denitrification from standard SLIMCAT simulation causes ~5–10 % more ozone loss at ~17 km compared with the simulation using the DLAPSE PSC scheme for Arctic winter 2004/2005. The calculated partial column ozone loss from SLIMCAT using the DLAPSE scheme is about 130 DU by mid-March 2005, which compares well with the inferred column ozone loss from ozonesondes and satellite data (127±21 DU).

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