Ozone in the boundary layer air over the Arctic Ocean: measurements during the TARA transpolar drift 2006–2008

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: W. Bottenheim, J., Netcheva, S., Morin, S., Nghiem, S.V.
• Other Authors: Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de l'environnement (LGGE), Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (OSUG), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA-California Institute of Technology (CALTECH), the company “agnès b”. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Cryospheric Sciences Program. DAMOCLES, OASIS-CANADA program (Ocean Atmosphere Sea Ice and Snow interactions in Polar regions), supported by the Canadian Federal Program Office for the International Polar Year (project #MD-065)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2009
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.GL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Glaciology; Arctic; Arctic Ocean
• Online Access: https://insu.hal.science/insu-00420404; https://insu.hal.science/insu-00420404/document; https://insu.hal.science/insu-00420404/file/acp-9-4545-2009.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-9-4545-2009

International audience A full year of measurements of surface ozone over the Arctic Ocean far removed from land is presented (81 N– 88 N latitude). The data were obtained during the drift of the French schooner TARA between September 2006 and January 2008, while frozen in the Arctic Ocean. The data confirm that long periods of virtually total absence of ozone occur in the spring (mid March to mid June) after Polar sunrise. At other times of the year, ozone concentrations are comparable to other oceanic observations with winter mole fractions of ca. 30–40 nmol mol−1 and summer minima of ca. 20 nmol mol−1. Contrary to earlier observations from ozone sonde data obtained at Arctic coastal observatories, the ambient temperature was well above −20 C during most ODEs (ozone depletion episodes). Backwards trajectory calculations suggest that during these ODEs the air had previously been in contact with the frozen ocean surface for several days and originated largely from the Siberian coast where several large open flaw leads and polynyas developed in the spring of 2007.