Comparison of long term tropospheric ozone trends measured by lidar and ECC ozonesondes from 1991 to 2010 in Southern France

International audienceECC (Electrochemical Concentration Cell) ozonesondes and UV DIAL (DIfferential Absorption Lidar) measurements have been carried out simultaneously at OHP (Observatoire de Haute Provence, 44°N, 6.7°E, 690 m) since 1991. A unique long-term trend assessment by two different instruments operated routinely at the same location is possible. Air mass trajectories have been calculated for all the ozone observations available at OHP. The bias between the seasonal mean calculated with lidar and ECC ozone vertical profiles for 4 time- periods of 5 years is 0.6 ppbv in the free troposphere (4-8 km). Larger differences (> 10 ppbv) are explained by the need for clear sky conditions during lidar observations. The measurements of both instruments have been combined to decrease the impact of short-term atmospheric variability on the trend estimate

Multiple symptoms of total ozone recovery inside the Antarctic vortex during austral spring

The long-term evolution of total ozone column inside the Antarctic polar vortex is investigated over the 1980-2016 period. Trend analyses are performed using a multilinear regression (MLR) model based on various proxies (heat flux, QBO, solar flux, AAO and aerosols). Annual total ozone column corresponding to the mean monthly values inside the vortex in September and during the period of maximum ozone depletion from September 15th to October 15th are used. Total ozone columns from combined TOMS-N7, SBUV-N9, TOMS-EP and OMI-TOMS satellite datasets and the Multi-Sensor Reanalysis (MRS-2) dataset are considered in the study. Ozone trends are computed by a piecewise trend model (PWT) before and after the turnaround in 2001. In order to evaluate total ozone within the vortex, two classification methods are used, based on the potential vorticity gradient as a function of equivalent latitude. The first standard one, considers this gradient at a single isentropic level (475K or 550K), while the second one uses a range of isentropic levels between 400K and 600K. The regression model includes a new proxy that represents the stability of the vortex during the studied month period. The determination coefficient (R2) between observations and modeled values increases by ~0.05 when this proxy is included in the MLR model. The higher R2 (0.93-0.95) and the minimum residuals are found for the second classification method in the case of both datasets and months periods. Trends in September are statistically significant at 2 sigma level with values ranging between 1.85 and 2.67 DU yr-1 depending on the methods and data sets. This result confirms the recent studies of Antarctic ozone healing during that month. Trends after 2001 are 2 to 3 times lower than before the turnaround year as expected from the response to the slowly ODS decrease in Polar regions.Estimated trends in the 15Sept-15Oct period are smaller than in September. They vary from 1.15 to 1.78 DU yr-1 and are hardly significant at 2 level. Ozone recovery is also confirmed by a steady decrease of the relative area of total ozone values lower than 150 DU within the vortex in the 15Sept-15Oct period since 2010. Comparison of the evolution of the ozone hole area in September and October show a decrease in September, confirming the later formation of the ozone hole during that month.Fil: Pazmino, Andrea. Universidad Paris Saclay; FranciaFil: Godin Beekmann, Sophie. Universidad Paris Saclay; FranciaFil: Hauchecorne, Alain. Universidad Paris Saclay; FranciaFil: Claud, Chantal. Ecole Polytechnique; FranciaFil: Khaykin, Sergey. Universidad Paris Saclay; FranciaFil: Goutail, Florence. Universidad Paris Saclay; FranciaFil: Wolfram, Elian Augusto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa. Centro de Investigación en Láseres y Aplicaciones; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa. Ministerio de Defensa. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa; Argentina. Ministerio de Defensa; ArgentinaFil: Salvador, Jacobo Omar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa. Centro de Investigación en Láseres y Aplicaciones; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa. Ministerio de Defensa. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa; Argentina. Ministerio de Defensa; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral; ArgentinaFil: Quel, Eduardo Jaime. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas para la Defensa. Centro de Investigación en Láseres y Aplicaciones; Argentina. Ministerio de Defensa; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa. Ministerio de Defensa. Unidad de Investigación y Desarrollo Estratégico para la Defensa; Argentin

Multiwavelength, aerosol lidars at Maïdo supersite, Reunion Island, France: instruments description, data processing chain and quality assessment

Understanding optical and radiative properties of aerosols and clouds is critical to reduce uncertainties in climate models. For over 10 years, the Observatory of Atmospheric Physics of La Réunion (OPAR) has been operating three active lidar instruments (named Li1200, LiO3S and LiO3T) providing time-series of vertical profiles from 3 to 45 km of the aerosol extinction and backscatter coefficients at 355 and 532 nm, as well as the linear depolarization ratio at 532 nm. This work provides a full technical description of the three systems, details about the methods chosen for the signal preprocessing and processing, and an uncertainty analysis. About 1737 night-time averaged profiles were manually screened to provide cloud-free and artifact-free profiles. Data processing consisted in Klett inversion to retrieve aerosol optical products from preprocessed files. The measurement frequency was lower during the wet season and the holiday periods. There is a good correlation between the Li1200 and LiO3S in terms of stratospheric AOD at 355 nm (0.001–0.107; R = 0.92 ± 0.01), and with the LiO3T in terms of Angström exponent 355/532 (0.079–1.288; R = 0.90 ± 0.13). The lowest values of the averaged uncertainty of the aerosol backscatter coefficient for the three time-series are 64.4 ± 31.6 % for the LiO3S, 50.3 ± 29.0 % for the Li1200, and 69.1 ± 42.7 % for the LiO3T. These relative uncertainties are high for the three instruments because of the very low values of extinction and backscatter coefficients for background aerosols above Maïdo observatory. Uncertainty increases due to SNR decrease above 25 km for the LIO3S and Li1200, and 20 km for the LiO3T. The LR is responsible for an uncertainty increase below 18 km (10 km) for the LiO3S and Li1200 (LiO3T). The LiO3S is the most stable instrument at 355 nm due to less technical modifications and less misalignments. The Li1200 is a valuable addition to fill in the gaps in the LiO3S time-series at 355 nm or for specific case-studies about the middle and low troposphere. Data described in this work are available at https://doi.org/10.26171/rwcm-q370 (Gantois et al., 2024)

The unusual persistence of an ozone hole over a southern mid-latitude station during the Antarctic spring 2009: a multi-instrument study

International audienceRecord-low ozone column densities (with a minimum of 212 DU) persisted over three weeks at the Río Gallegos NDACC (Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change) station (51.5° S, 69.3° W) in November 2009. Total ozone remained two standard deviations below the climatological mean for five consecutive days during this period. The statistical analysis of 30 years of satellite data from the Multi Sensor Reanalysis (MSR) database for Río Gallegos revealed that such a long-lasting low-ozone episode is a rare occurrence. The event is examined using height-resolved ozone lidar measurements at Río Gallegos, and observations from satellite and ground-based instruments. The computed relative difference between the measured total ozone and the climatological monthly mean shows reductions varying between 10 and 30% with an average decrease of 25%. The mean absolute difference of total ozone column with respect to climatological monthly mean ozone column is around 75 DU. Extreme values of the UV index (UVI) were measured at the ground for this period, with the daily maximum UVI of around 13 on 15 and 28 November. The high-resolution MIMOSA-CHIM (Modélisation Isentrope du transport Méso-échelle de l'Ozone Stratosphérique par Advection) model was used to interpret the ozone depletion event. An ozone decrease of about 2 ppmv was observed in mid-November at the 550 K isentropic level (~22 km). The position of Río Gallegos relative to the polar vortex was classified using equivalent latitude maps. During the second week of November, the vortex was over the station at all isentropic levels, but after 20 November and until the end of the month, only the 10 lower levels in the stratosphere were affected by vortex overpasses with ozone poor air masses. A rapid recovery of the ozone column density was observed later, due to an ozone rich filament moving over Río Gallegos between 18 and 24 km in the first two weeks of December 2009

Stratospheric AOD after the 2011 eruption of Nabro volcano measured by lidars over the Northern Hemisphere

International audienceNabro volcano (13.37°N, 41.70°E) in Eritrea erupted on 13 June 2011 generating a layer of sulfate aerosols that persisted in the stratosphere for months. For the first time we report on ground-based lidar observations of the same event from every continent in the Northern Hemisphere, taking advantage of the synergy between global lidar networks such as EARLINET, MPLNET and NDACC with independent lidar groups and satellite CALIPSO to track the evolution of the stratospheric aerosol layer in various parts of the globe. The globally averaged aerosol optical depth (AOD) due to the stratospheric volcanic aerosol layers was of the order of 0.018 ± 0.009 at 532 nm, ranging from 0.003 to 0.04. Compared to the total column AOD from the available collocated AERONET stations, the stratospheric contribution varied from 2% to 23% at 532 nm

VALIDATION OF GOMOS OZONE PROFILES USING NDSC LIDAR : STATISTICAL COMPARISONS

ABSTRACT The lidars deployed in the NDSC framework have been used for the validation of GOMOS onboard ENVISAT. During the commissioning phase around ten coincidences per site have been investigated. No significant bias, larger than ±5 %, has been reported except around 50 km and 20 km where both techniques are known to present some limitations. The estimated errors of both GOMOS and lidar are in good agreement with the standard deviation of the differences between coincidences. At higher latitude, comparisons are not so good because of the measurement conditions of bright limb during this period

Observation of large and all-season ozone losses over the tropics” [AIP Adv. 12, 075006 (2022)]

As discussed above, and supported by extensive literature, there is no robust, credible observational evidence for substantial ozone depletion (i.e., an “ozone hole”) in the tropics. It is well known that climatological total ozone in the tropics is much lower than that in the mid-latitudes (e.g., Sahai et al., 2000; Weber et al., 2022). Satellite and ozonesonde measurements indicate a 3%–5% per decade decline of tropical lower stratosphere ozone prior to 2000, far smaller than that reported by L2022. The stronger decline reported by L2022 is caused by inappropriate use of the gap-filled version of the TOST ozone dataset, which is based on sparse tropical ozone sondes before the 1990s. This misuse of data (TOST and total column ozone) shows the importance of collaboratively engaging with groups who obtain the measurements and create climatological datasets before performing such analyses. Furthermore, the study by L2022 has multiple flaws in its discussion of atmospheric chemistry and dynamics, particularly in the proposed, and previously refuted (see Sec. III A), cosmicray- driven electron induced (CRE) mechanism. Evidence for the occurrence of tropical stratospheric clouds, as needed for the tropical CRE mechanism, is lacking, nor do CFC-12 observations show signatures of depletion in the tropical lower stratosphere, which could be associated with dissociative electron attachment-induced loss of CFC-12 on particulate matter (i.e., the CRE mechanism). Finally, it is worth reiterating that the CRE mechanism is also not responsible for polar LS ozone depletion. Polar ozone loss can be well explained by the gas phase and heterogeneous chemistry, based on extensive observations and modeling studies documented in many thousands of scientific papers on the topic [e.g., see WMO (2018) and references therein], which is not acknowledged by L2022. L2022’s research paper is a severely flawed one. There is no tropical ozone hole, and the CRE mechanism does not explain observed changes in stratospheric ozone either in the polar regions or in the tropics

Updated trends of the stratospheric ozone vertical distribution in the 60° S–60° N latitude range based on the LOTUS regression model

This study presents an updated evaluation of stratospheric ozone profile trends in the 60° S–60° N latitude range over the 2000–2020 period using an updated version of the Long-term Ozone Trends and Uncertainties in the Stratosphere (LOTUS) regression model that was used to evaluate such trends up to 2016 for the last WMO Ozone Assessment (2018). In addition to the derivation of detailed trends as a function of latitude and vertical coordinates, the regressions are performed with the datasets averaged over broad latitude bands, i.e. 60–35° S, 20° S–20° N and 35–60° N. The same methodology as in the last assessment is applied to combine trends in these broad latitude bands in order to compare the results with the previous studies. Longitudinally resolved merged satellite records are also considered in order to provide a better comparison with trends retrieved from ground-based records, e.g. lidar, ozonesondes, Umkehr, microwave and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers at selected stations where long-term time series are available. The study includes a comparison with trends derived from the REF-C2 simulations of the Chemistry Climate Model Initiative (CCMI-1). This work confirms past results showing an ozone increase in the upper stratosphere, which is now significant in the three broad latitude bands. The increase is largest in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere midlatitudes, with ∼2.2 ± 0.7 % per decade at ∼2.1 hPa and ∼2.1 ± 0.6 % per decade at ∼3.2 hPa respectively compared to ∼1.6 ± 0.6 % per decade at ∼2.6 hPa in the tropics. New trend signals have emerged from the records, such as a significant decrease in ozone in the tropics around 35 hPa and a non-significant increase in ozone in the southern midlatitudes at about 20 hPa. Non-significant negative ozone trends are derived in the lowermost stratosphere, with the most pronounced trends in the tropics. While a very good agreement is obtained between trends from merged satellite records and the CCMI-1 REF-C2 simulation in the upper stratosphere, observed negative trends in the lower stratosphere are not reproduced by models at southern and, in particular, at northern midlatitudes, where models report an ozone increase. However, the lower-stratospheric trend uncertainties are quite large, for both measured and modelled trends. Finally, 2000–2020 stratospheric ozone trends derived from the ground-based and longitudinally resolved satellite records are in reasonable agreement over the European Alpine and tropical regions, while at the Lauder station in the Southern Hemisphere midlatitudes they show some differences

Global perturbation of stratospheric water and aerosol burden by Hunga eruption

The eruption of the submarine Hunga volcano in January 2022 was associated with a powerful blast that injected volcanic material to altitudes up to 58 km. From a combination of various types of satellite and ground-based observations supported by transport modeling, we show evidence for an unprecedented increase in the global stratospheric water mass by 13% relative to climatological levels, and a 5-fold increase of stratospheric aerosol load, the highest in the last three decades. Owing to the extreme injection altitude, the volcanic plume circumnavigated the Earth in only 1 week and dispersed nearly pole-to-pole in three months. The unique nature and magnitude of the global stratospheric perturbation by the Hunga eruption ranks it among the most remarkable climatic events in the modern observation era, with a range of potential long-lasting repercussions for stratospheric composition and climate