Long-term wintertime trend of zonally asymmetric ozone in boreal extratropics during 1979-2016

• Main Authors: Schneidereit, A., Peters, D.H.W.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Basel : MDPI AG 2018
• Subjects: ddc:550; Ozone transport; Quasi-bidecadal trend; Total column ozone; zonally asymmetric ozone; Ultra-long planetary waves; Horizontal components; Planetary Waves; Total ozone mapping spectrometer; Transport modeling; Vertical advection; Ozone; ageostrophic flow; atmospheric chemistry; atmospheric transport; extratropical environment; long range transport; planetary wave; stratosphere; temporal variation; trend analysis; winter; Atlantic Ocean; Atlantic Ocean (North); Europe; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/6003; https://doi.org/10.34657/4632

Strong zonally asymmetric ozone (ZAO) changes are observed in the boreal extratropics for winter. During the TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) period (1979-1992) the decrease of zonally asymmetric total ozone (ZATO) was twice as large as the observed zonal mean total ozone trend over Europe in January mainly caused by ultra-long wave transport. Recent studies have demonstrated that the ozone evolution reveals three different quasi-bidecadal trend stages: (i) Decline, (ii) leveling, and (ii) healing. This study focuses on the ZAO structure in boreal extratropics and on ozone transport changes by ultra-long waves during winter months. ERA-Interim data together with a linearized transport model are used. During the healing stage ZATO increases significantly over the North Atlantic/European region for January. The ZATO increase (healing stage) and ZATO decrease (decline stage) are caused by different monthly mean ozone transport characteristics of ultra-long planetary waves over the North Atlantic/European region. Furthermore, the vertical advection (ageostrophic transport) of ozone versus its horizontal component dominates in the lower and middle stratosphere during the healing stage. It is hypothesized that these ageostrophic wind changes are mainly caused by a wave train directed northeastwards which seems to be directly linked to the Arctic warming. © 2018 by the authors.