0000000000671594
AUTHOR
Johannes Staehelin
Determination of eddy diffusivity in the lowermost stratosphere
[1] We present a 2D-advection-diffusion model that simulates the main transport pathways influencing tracer distributions in the lowermost stratosphere (LMS). The model describes slow diabatic descent of aged stratospheric air, vertical (cross-isentropic) and horizontal (along isentropes) diffusion within the LMS and across the tropopause using equivalent latitude and potential temperature coordinates. Eddy diffusion coefficients parameterize the integral effect of dynamical processes leading to small scale turbulence and mixing. They were specified by matching model simulations to observed CO distributions. Interestingly, the model suggests mixing across isentropes to be more important tha…
Strong influence of lowermost stratospheric ozone on lower tropospheric background ozone changes over Europe
[1] Using ozone measurements from two sounding sites and two high-altitude stations in Central Europe, we show evidence for a dominant influence of changes in lowermost stratospheric ozone on the variability and overall upward trend of background ozone in the lower troposphere (3000–3500 m asl) during the 1992–2004 period. Numerical simulations with a stratospheric chemistry transport model suggest that changes in lower stratospheric ozone were driven by dynamics rather than by changes in stratospheric chlorine loading. In addition, Lagrangian model simulations indicate that changes in downward transport of ozone from the stratosphere into the troposphere were dominated by changes in lowerm…
A composite study on the structure and formation of ozone miniholes and minihighs over central Europe
[1] Two different mechanisms have been proposed to be important for the formation of extreme total ozone events in mid-latitudes, so-called miniholes: (A) far-range meridional transport of air masses from regions with different climatological ozone mixing ratios, and (B) (local) adiabatic vertical displacement of isentropes. Here, the relative importance of these two mechanisms is studied using two different ozone profile reconstruction techniques for all miniholes and minihighs (events with anomalously high ozone) during the time period 1980–1989 over Switzerland. Composites for the two types of events of their vertical potential vorticity (PV) reveal a vertical dipole structure of PV anom…