Magnetic-local-time dependency of radiation belt electron precipitation: impact on ozone in the polar middle atmosphere

The radiation belts are regions in the near-Earth space where solar wind electrons are captured by the Earth's magnetic field. A portion of these electrons is continuously lost into the atmosphere where they cause ionization and chemical changes. Driven by the solar activity, the electron forcing leads to ozone variability in the polar stratosphere and mesosphere. Understanding the possible dynamical connections to regional climate is an ongoing research activity which supports the assessment of greenhouse-gas-driven climate change by a better definition of the solar-driven variability. In the context of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), energetic electron and proton precipitation is included in the solar-forcing recommendation for the first time. For the radiation belt electrons, the CMIP6 forcing is from a daily zonal-mean proxy model. This zonal-mean model ignores the well-known dependency of precipitation on magnetic local time (MLT), i.e. its diurnal variability. Here we use the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with its lower-ionospheric-chemistry extension (WACCM-D) to study effects of the MLT dependency of electron forcing on the polar-ozone response. We analyse simulations applying MLT-dependent and MLT-independent forcings and contrast the resulting ozone responses in monthly-mean data as well as in monthly means at individual local times. We consider two cases: (1) the year 2003 and (2) an extreme, continuous forcing. Our results indicate that the ozone responses to the MLT-dependent and the MLT-independent forcings are very similar, and the differences found are small compared to those caused by the overall uncertainties related to the representation of electron forcing in climate simulations. We conclude that the use of daily zonal-mean electron forcing will provide an accurate ozone response in long-term climate simulations

Statistical response of middle atmosphere composition to solar proton events in WACCM-D simulations: the importance of lower ionospheric chemistry

Atmospheric effects of solar proton events (SPEs) have been studied for decades, because their drastic impact can be used to test our understanding of upper stratospheric and mesospheric chemistry in the polar cap regions. For example, odd hydrogen and odd nitrogen are produced during SPEs, which leads to depletion of ozone in catalytic reactions, such that the effects are easily observed from satellites during the strongest events. Until recently, the complexity of the ion chemistry in the lower ionosphere (i.e., in the D region) has restricted global models to simplified parameterizations of chemical impacts induced by energetic particle precipitation (EPP). Because of this restriction, global models have been unable to correctly reproduce some important effects, such as the increase in mesospheric HNO3 or the changes in chlorine species. Here we use simulations from the WACCM-D model, a variant of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, to study the statistical response of the atmosphere to the 66 strongest SPEs which occurred in the years 1989–2012. Our model includes a set of D-region ion chemistry, designed for a detailed representation of the atmospheric effects of SPEs and EPP in general. We use superposed epoch analysis to study changes in O3, HOx (OH + HO2), Clx (Cl + ClO), HNO3, NOx (NO + NO2) and H2O. Compared to the standard WACCM which uses an ion chemistry parameterization, WACCM-D produces a larger response in O3 and NOx and a weaker response in HOx and introduces changes in HNO3 and Clx. These differences between WACCM and WACCM-D highlight the importance of including ion chemistry reactions in models used to study EPP