Investigate the Ozone Thickness and Temperature above Iraq during Severe and Strong Geomagnetic Storms

Najat M R Al-Ubaidi,T I Zahra

doi:10.4236/gep.2018.62004

Najat M R Al-Ubaidi, T I Zahra

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/gep.2018.62004

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Abstract

The aim of this research is to find the effect of the geomagnetic storms on the variation of the Ozone layer thickness by studying the hourly variations, daily average and monthly average of the Ozone amount above Iraq (38°N - 49°N; 28°E - 38°E), and rates of productions correlated with fluctuations in geomagnetic field intensity. Data of total column ozone (tco3) and temperature (t2m) were selected from the ERA satellite for year 2015, in which there are seven days strong and severe geomagnetic storms occurring along four months. From the monthly average in which the storm occurred, the contour maps for (tco3) and (t2m) reveal that the thickness of Ozone layer in North of Iraq wider than the middle and South of Iraq for all stormy months except in October of 2015 appears which is the maximum in middle of Iraq. The temperature is reversely proportional with Ozone thickness. Results of the daily average appear that there are enhancements in (tco3) during the stormy day for the three Iraqi cities Muthanna, Baghdad, and Sulaymaniyah; the maximum values in winter and spring reach 356 DU in March. From the hourly variations of tco3 and t2m for three Iraqi cities, it is seen that in some events it decreases and others increase, not dependent on storm type. The slope of trend line for variation of (tco3) with the variation of (t2m) drawn gives that there is no relationship between them along the three cities taken and for all 7 events. Finally from the percentage variation of (tco3) and (t2m) for two days before the storm and seven days after the storms it is indicated that there is a considerable unsystematic increase and decrease for the three cities chosen.

Highlights

There are many indications about the relationship between geomagnetic activity and atmospheric ozone which is evidenced by a number of authors (e.g. Entzian and Grasnic, 1981; Jackman et al, 1990; Lastovicka et al, 1992; Hood, 1997)
It was found that the response of the mesosphere-lower thermosphere (MLT) dynamics to the first geomagnetic storm occurring in the daytime and accompanied by solar proton fluxes is very different from those to the second and third geomagnetic storms with onsets during the night time [7]
The aim of this study is to find the effect of geomagnetic storms on the total column ozone and temperature over Iraqi region during year 2015

Summary

Introduction

There are many indications about the relationship between geomagnetic activity and atmospheric ozone which is evidenced by a number of authors (e.g. Entzian and Grasnic, 1981; Jackman et al, 1990; Lastovicka et al, 1992; Hood, 1997). Lastovicka and Mlch (1999) found that the significant effects of geomagnetic storms on total ozone have been observed only in winter and for strong storms [3]. Yordan Tassev et al (2003) studied the effect of solar Cosmic rays (CR) and the geomagnetic storm on the ozone profiles in the middle atmosphere and the regeneration of the ozone density in the lower stratosphere during night-time [5]. Lastovicka and Kriman Peter (2005) found that the main results of the investigations of the effects of geomagnetic storms’ decrease on the total ozone may be due to sufficiently strong and statistically significant effects of geomagnetic storms and the Forbush decrease of the galactic cosmic ray flux appears to occur in the total ozone at the northern higher middle latitudes only for strong events in winter.

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