A numerical process study on the rapid transport of stratospheric air down to the surface over western North America and the Tibetan Plateau

Škerlak, Bojan; Pfahl, Stephan; Sprenger, Michael; Wernli, Heini

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6535-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 9

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 6535–6549, 2019

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6535-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 6535–6549, 2019

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-6535-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 9

Research article 17 May 2019

Research article | 17 May 2019

A numerical process study on the rapid transport of stratospheric air down to the surface over western North America and the Tibetan Plateau

Bojan Škerlak et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 17 May 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 12 Dec 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review of Skerlak et al.', Suzanne L. Gray, 07 Jan 2019
- AC1: 'Review', Michael Sprenger, 21 Mar 2019
RC2: 'Referee Comments', Allen Lefohn, 13 Jan 2019
- AC1: 'Review', Michael Sprenger, 21 Mar 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Michael Sprenger on behalf of the Authors (31 Mar 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (17 Apr 2019) by Rolf Müller

RR by Allen Lefohn (24 Apr 2019)

RR by Suzanne L. Gray (03 May 2019)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (03 May 2019) by Rolf Müller

Short summary

Upper-level fronts are often associated with the rapid transport of stratospheric air to the lower troposphere, leading to significantly enhanced ozone concentrations. This paper considers the multi-scale nature that is needed to bring stratospheric air down to the surface. The final transport step to the surface can be related to frontal zones and the associated vertical winds or to near-horizontal tracer transport followed by entrainment into a growing planetary boundary layer.