Ozone budget in the upper stratosphere: Model studies using the reprocessed LIMS and the HALOE datasets

Abstract

Recently reprocessed LIMS dataset has been used with a contemporary photochemical model to study the balance between photochemical production and destruction of ozone in the upper stratosphere. Model results corresponding to January 1979 indicate that the ozone deficit is less than 15% in the pressure range of 5 to 0.5 mb between 50°S and 50°N latitude. The imbalance at 40 km is much smaller than reported by the earliest studies with the archived LIMS data. The same model, when initialized with HALOE (version 19) data for January, 1996, shows similar results with peak ozone deficits being less than 10%. For both cases, the model shows a near balance in the ozone budget above 1 mb, contrary to recent studies based on balloon‐borne measurements. The magnitude of the ozone imbalance seen in this study is within the uncertainties of the data and model.