The Effects of Water Vapor and Oxides of Nitrogen on the Ozone and Temperature Structure of the Stratosphere

Abstract

A steady-state mean meridional model of the stratosphere is used to investigate the effects of water vapor and nitrogen oxides on ozone and temperature distributions in the stratosphere. Chapman's classical photochemical scheme for ozone is extended to include the dominant reactions involving hydrogen compounds and nitrogen oxides. The ozone and temperature changes are studied under radiative-photochemical equilibrium conditions and in a model incorporating both transport and radiative-photochemical processes. It is found that both hydrogen and nitrogen reactions contribute to substantial decreases in ozone and temperature under photochemical equilibrium conditions, but the computed distributions do not resemble those observed. The effect of transport processes is to reduce the deviations in ozone mixing ratio and temperature, with the computed distributions having many features in common with the observations. It is found that ozone and temperature respond more readily to an arbitrary increase of nitrogen oxides than to that of water vapor.