Simulation and causes of eastern Antarctica surface cooling related to ozone depletion during austral summer in FGOALS-s2

Abstract

Two parallel sets of numerical experiments (an ozone-hole simulation and a non-ozone-hole simulation) were performed to investigate the effect of ozone depletion on surface temperature change using the second spectral version of the Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model (FGOALS-s2), focusing on the eastern Antarctica (EA) continent in austral summer. First, we evaluated the ability of the model to simulate the EA surface cooling, and found the model can successfully reproduce the cooling trend of the EA surface, as well as the circulation change circling the South Pole in the past 30 years. Second, we compared the two experiments and discovered that the ozone depletion causes the cooling trend and strengthens the circumpolar westerly flow. We further investigated the causes of the EA surface cooling associated with the ozone hole and found two major contributors. The first is the ozone-hole direct radiation effect (DRE) upon the surface that happens because the decrease of the downward longwave (LW) radiation overcomes the increase of the downward shortwave (SW) radiation under clear sky. The second is the cloud radiation effect (CRE) induced by ozone depletion, which happens because the decreased downward SW radiation overcomes the increased downward LW radiation in the case of increased cloud. Although the CRE is theoretically opposite to the DRE, their final net effect makes comparable contributions to the EA surface cooling. Compared with the surface radiation budget, the surface heat flux budgets have a much smaller contribution. We additionally note that the CRE is basically ascribed to the circulation change.