Abstract
Abstract. In this paper we report on a study conducted using the Middle Atmospheric Nitrogen TRend Assessment (MANTRA) balloon measurements of stratospheric constituents and temperature and the Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model (CMAM). Three different kinds of data are used to assess the inter-consistency of the combined dataset: single profiles of long-lived species from MANTRA 1998, sparse climatologies from the ozonesonde measurements during the four MANTRA campaigns and from HALOE satellite measurements, and the CMAM climatology. In doing so, we evaluate the ability of the model to reproduce the measured fields and to thereby test our ability to describe mid-latitude summertime stratospheric processes. The MANTRA campaigns were conducted at Vanscoy, Saskatchewan, Canada (52° N, 107° W) in late August and early September of 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004. During late summer at mid-latitudes, the stratosphere is close to photochemical control, providing an ideal scenario for the study reported here. From this analysis we find that: (1) reducing the value for the vertical diffusion coefficient in CMAM to a more physically reasonable value results in the model better reproducing the measured profiles of long-lived species; (2) the existence of compact correlations among the constituents, as expected from independent measurements in the literature and from models, confirms the self-consistency of the MANTRA measurements; and (3) the 1998 measurements show structures in the chemical species profiles that can be associated with transport, adding to the growing evidence that the summertime stratosphere can be much more disturbed than anticipated. The mechanisms responsible for such disturbances need to be understood in order to assess the representativeness of the measurements and to isolate long-term trends.
Highlights
The science of stratospheric ozone gained a new dimension when it became clear that ozone depletion, and its anticipated recovery, is linked to climate change in a complex way
In this paper we report on co-located measurements of ozone, temperature, and long-lived species made during four Middle Atmospheric Nitrogen TRend Assessment (MANTRA) balloon campaigns conducted in different years and compare them with results from the Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model (CMAM), a coupled chemistry-climate model
During the four MANTRA campaigns, a large number of ozone profiles were collected allowing calculation of average profiles that can be used for comparisons with CMAM
Summary
The science of stratospheric ozone gained a new dimension when it became clear that ozone depletion, and its anticipated recovery, is linked to climate change in a complex way. Temperature, humidity, winds, and the presence of other chemicals in the atmosphere influence ozone formation and transport, and the presence of ozone, in turn, affects those atmospheric fields through radiative processes. The existence of such a link seems intuitive, a detailed description of the processes and their relative importance remains a challenge. Understanding the processes that control the ozone budget and the proper representation of such processes in atmospheric models are recognized in recent assessments as fundamental to projecting ozone recovery and to further explore the effects of ozone on climate and vice versa (WMO, 2007; IPCC/TEAP, 2005).
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