Size dependence of ozone lamina characteristics and their correlations

Abstract

Ozone profiles contain narrow layers of substantially enhanced or reduced ozone, called positive and negative laminae, respectively. They reflect both evolutions of stratospheric ozone content and stratospheric dynamics. Here we deal only with positive laminae. The following lamina characteristics are investigated in dependence on lamina size: the number of laminae per profile, the overall ozone amount in laminae per profile and the ozone amount in one lamina at the European ozonosonde stations. An important role of the vertical resolution of ozonesonde measurements is specified. Lamina characteristics for Legionowo and Lindenberg, and small lamina (<2mPa) characteristics for all stations suffer with effects of vertical resolution of measurements. For this reason they are not used here for long-term trend investigations. The long-term evolution of the ozone amount in one lamina does not display a trend. The results for the three remaining stations, Hohenpeissenberg, Payerne and Uccle, are largely consistent with our previous results on lamina behaviour, which means that our previous results on trends in laminae (e.g., Križan and Laštovička, 2005; Laštovička et al., 2014) are basically correct. The number of laminae per profile and the overall ozone amount in laminae per profile show negative trends before (1979–1995) and rather positive trends after (1996–2011) the reversal of trends in total columnar ozone over Europe. Both parameters reach the highest values for small laminae and with increasing size they decrease. Correlations between characteristics of laminae of different size ranges at individual stations are better for neighbour lamina ranges than for distant lamina ranges. The number of statistically significant correlations of laminae of the same size between pairs of stations is much higher for large laminae above 4mPa, probably due to processes responsible for their formation and their expected larger horizontal size.