Is the residual vertical velocity a good proxy for stratosphere-troposphere exchange of ozone?
- Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States). Department of Earth System Science
Abstract Stratosphere‐troposphere exchange (STE) of ozone (O 3 ) is key in the budget of tropospheric O 3 , in turn affecting climate forcing and global air quality. We compare three commonly used diagnostics meant to quantify cross‐tropopause O 3 fluxes with a Chemistry‐Transport Model driven by two distinct European Centre forecast fields. Our reference case calculates accurate, geographically resolved net transport across an isosurface in artificial tracer e90 representing the tropopause. Hemispheric fluxes derived from the ozone mass budget of the lowermost stratosphere yield similar results. Use of the Brewer‐Dobson residual vertical velocity as a scaled proxy for ozone flux, however, fails to capture the interannual variability. Thus, the common notion that the strength of stratospheric overturning circulation is a good measure for global STE does not apply to O 3 . Climatic variability in the modeled O 3 flux needs to be diagnosed directly rather than indirectly through the overturning circulation.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0007021
- OSTI ID:
- 1454735
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1402283
- Journal Information:
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 41, Issue 24; ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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