Possible influence of long-term sea surface temperature anomalies in the tropical Pacific on global ozone

Abstract

A significant negative correlation exists between June–August sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the eastern equatorial Pacific and 15–31 October total ozone values at South Pole, Antarctica. SSTs in the eastern equatorial Pacific were anomalously warmer by 0.67 °C during 1976–1987 compared with 1962–1975. Quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) easterly winds in the equatorial Pacific stratosphere were generally stronger after 1975 than they were before that time. Prior to the early-to-mid 1970s the trend in global ozone was generally upward, but then turned downward. Total ozone at Hawaii and Samoa, which had been decreasing at a rate of about 0.35% yr−1 during 1976–1987, showed recovery to mid-1970s values in 1988–1989 following a drop in SSTs in the eastern equatorial Pacific to low values last observed there prior to 1976. During 15–31 October 1988, total ozone at South Pole, which had decreased from about 280 Dobson units (DU) prior to 1980 to 140 DU in 1987, suddenly recovered to 250 DU, though substantial ozone depletion by heterogeneous photochemical processes involving polar stratospheric clouds was still evident in the South Pole ozone vertical profiles. These observations suggest that the downward trend in ozone observed over the globe in recent years may have been at least partially meteorologically induced, possibly through modulation by the warmer tropical Pacific ocean waters of QBO easterly winds at the equator, of planetary waves in the extratropics, of the interaction of QBO winds and planetary waves, and of Hadley Cell circulation. A cursory analysis of geostrophic wind flow around the Baffin Island low suggests a meteorological influence on the observed downward trend in ozone over North America during the past decade. Because ozone has a lifetime that varies from minutes to hours in the primary ozone production region at high altitudes in the tropical stratosphere to months and years in the low stratosphere, changes in atmospheric dynamics have the potential for not only redistributing ozone over the globe, but also changing global ozone abundance.