Identification

Title

Atmospheric tracers during the 2003-2004 stratospheric warming event and impact of ozone intrusions in the troposphere

Abstract

We use the stratospheric/tropospheric chemical transport model MOZART-3 to study the distribution and transport of stratospheric O₃ during the remarkable stratospheric sudden warming event observed in January 2004 in the northern polar region. A comparison between observations by the MIPAS instrument on board the ENVISAT spacecraft and model simulations shows that the evolution of the polar vortex and of planetary waves during the warming event plays an important role in controlling the spatial distribution of stratospheric ozone and the downward ozone flux in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere (UTLS) region. Compared to the situation during the winter of 2002-2003, lower ozone concentrations were transported from the polar region to mid-latitudes, leading to exceptional large areas of low ozone concentrations outside the polar vortex and "low-ozone pockets" in the middle stratosphere. The unusually long-lasting stratospheric westward winds (easterlies) during the 2003-2004 event greatly restricted the upward propagation of planetary waves, causing the weak transport of ozone-rich air originated from low latitudes to the middle polar stratosphere (30 km). The restricted wave activities led to a reduced extratropical downward ozone flux from the lower stratosphere to the lowermost stratosphere (or from the "overworld" into the "middleworld"), especially over East Asia. Consequently, during wintertime (15 December~15 February), the total downward ozone transport on 100 hPa surface by the descending branches of Brewer-Dobson circulation over this region was about 10% lower during the 2003-2004 event. Meanwhile, the extratropical total cross-tropopause ozone flux (CTOF) was also reduced by ~25%. Compared to the cold 1999-2000 winter, the vertical CTOF in high latitudes (60°~90° N) increased more than 10 times during the two warming winters, while the vertical CTOF in mid-latitudes (30°~60° N) decreased by 20~40%. Moreover, during the two warming winters, the meridional CTOF caused by the isentropic transport associating with the enhanced wave activity also increased and played an important role in the total extratropical CTOF budget.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7pz59tc

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2009-03-24T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact