Abstract
The downward transport of stratospheric ozone is an important natural source of tropospheric ozone, particularly in the upper troposphere, where changes in ozone have their largest radiative effect1. Stratospheric circulation is projected to intensify over the coming century, which could lead to an increase in the flux of ozone from the stratosphere to the troposphere2,3,4. However, large uncertainties in the stratospheric contribution to trends and variability in tropospheric ozone levels5,6,7 make it difficult to reliably project future changes in tropospheric ozone8. Here, we use satellite measurements of stratospheric water vapour and tropospheric ozone levels collected between 2005 and 2010 to assess the effect of changes in stratospheric circulation, driven by El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the stratospheric Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, on tropospheric ozone levels. We find that interannual variations in the strength of the stratospheric circulation of around 40%—comparable to the mean change in stratospheric circulation projected this century2—lead to changes in tropospheric ozone levels in the northern mid-latitudes of around 2%, approximately half of the interannual variability. Assuming that the observed response of tropospheric ozone levels to interannual variations in circulation is a good predictor of its equilibrium response, we suggest that the projected intensification of the stratospheric circulation over the coming century could lead to small but important increases in tropospheric ozone levels.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the MLS and TES science teams and the Aura project for their support. We also thank J-F. Lamarque and D. Kinnison of the National Center for Atmospheric Research for providing CAM-Chem and WACCM modelling results, respectively, H. Nguyen of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for help with the statistical analysis, T. Shepherd of the University of Reading for allowing us to include results from the CMAM model, and S. Hardiman of the UK Meterological Office for providing model residual vertical velocities. The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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J.L.N. led the analysis and wrote the paper. T.F. calculated the tropical upwelling rates from MLS water vapour measurements. G.L.M., M.L.S. and N.J.L. provided expertise on the use of MLS data, and J.W. provided expertise on the use of TES data. All authors contributed comments on the manuscript.
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Neu, J., Flury, T., Manney, G. et al. Tropospheric ozone variations governed by changes in stratospheric circulation. Nature Geosci 7, 340–344 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2138
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2138
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