Ozone decrease outside Arctic polar vortex due to polar vortex processing in 1997

Abstract

We examine the effect of polar vortex processing on ozone concentrations outside the 1997 Arctic polar vortex. The Arctic vortex in this year was well isolated, cold, and circumpolar, and it broke up unusually late. However, time threshold diagnostics (TTD) analysis using a middle vortex boundary defined by the first derivative of the equivalent latitude gradient of potential vorticity and calculations using the nudging chemical transport model (CTM) of the Center for Climate System Research/ National Institute for Environmental Studies (CCSR/NIES) show that there were intermittently several relatively large transport events from the vortex to the outside region in the lower stratosphere, with timescales and spatial scales that can be resolved at T42 CTM horizontal resolution (2.8° by 2.8° grid). These intermittent outflow events of polar air are also identified in TTD analysis using an outer vortex boundary defined by the second derivative of potential vorticity and a boundary defined by the N 2 O concentration. These intermittent events had a significant effect on the ozone concentration outside the vortex near the boundary in this year. A CTM calculation with a polar chemical ozone tracer shows that the effect on the ozone concentration outside the polar vortex near the vortex boundary in the equivalent latitude band of 55°-65°N and 450 K is 0.3 ppmv (15-20% of the ozone concentration at this height) and that on the total ozone is 12-15 Dobson units (1 DU = 0.001 atm cm) (3-4% of the total ozone) by the end of April just before the final vortex breakup. The effect in the equivalent latitude band of 30°-60°N is much smaller, with a reduction of 2 DU at the end of March and 4 DU by the end of April (less than 1% of the total ozone). The effect is about the half if we use the inner boundary or a boundary of 73°N equivalent latitude for the polar tracer calculations. The CTM calculations also show that these polar vortex processing effects might be masked at midlatitudes by the local gas phase chemical ozone production/loss reactions after mid-April at 450 K and earlier than those at 500 K. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.