EGU21-5376
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-5376
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Ozone super recovery cancelled in the Antarctic upper stratosphere

Ville Maliniemi1, Pavle Arsenovic2, Hilde Nesse Tyssøy1, Christine Smith-Johnsen1, and Daniel R. Marsh3
Ville Maliniemi et al.
  • 1Birkeland Centre for Space Science, Department of Physics and Technology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
  • 2EMPA, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology, Zürich, Switzerland
  • 3National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA,

Ozone is expected to fully recover from the CFC-era by the end of the 21st century. Furthermore, because of the anthropogenic climate change, cooler stratosphere accelerates the ozone production and is projected to lead to a super recovery. We investigate the ozone distribution over the 21st century with four different future scenarios using simulations of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). At the end of the 21st century, higher polar ozone levels than pre CFC-era are obtained in scenarios that have highest atmospheric radiative forcing. This is true in the Arctic stratosphere and the Antarctic lower stratosphere. The Antarctic upper stratosphere forms an exception, where different scenarios have similar level of ozone during winter. This results from excess nitrogen oxides (NOx) descending from above in stronger future scenarios. NOx is formed by energetic electron precipitation (EEP) in the thermosphere and the upper mesosphere, and descends faster through the mesosphere in stronger scenarios. This indicates that the EEP indirect effect will be important factor for the future Antarctic ozone evolution, and is potentially able to prevent the super recovery in the upper stratosphere.

How to cite: Maliniemi, V., Arsenovic, P., Nesse Tyssøy, H., Smith-Johnsen, C., and Marsh, D. R.: Ozone super recovery cancelled in the Antarctic upper stratosphere, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-5376, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-5376, 2021.

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