Observational evidence of energetic particle precipitation NOx (EPP-NOx) interaction with chlorine curbing Antarctic ozone loss

Gordon, Emily M.; Seppälä, Annika; Funke, Bernd; Tamminen, Johanna; Walker, Kaley A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-2819-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-2819-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-2819-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 4

Research article

|

24 Feb 2021

Research article |

| 24 Feb 2021

Observational evidence of energetic particle precipitation NO_x (EPP-NO_x) interaction with chlorine curbing Antarctic ozone loss

Emily M. Gordon, Annika Seppälä, Bernd Funke, Johanna Tamminen, and Kaley A. Walker

Data sets

Kyoto World Data Center for Geomagnetism http://wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/kp

QBO data Freie Universität Berlin https://www.geo.fu-berlin.de/en/met/ag/strat/produkte/qbo

OMI/Aura Ozone (O3) Total Column Daily L2 Global Gridded 0.25 degree x 0.25 degree V3 P. K. Bhartia https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/OMI/DATA2025

MLS/Aura Level 2 Chlorine Monoxide (ClO) Mixing Ratio V005 M. Santee, N. Livesey, and W. Read https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/MLS/DATA2505

Access to IMK/IAA generated MIPAS/Envisat data Karlsruhe Institute of Technology https://www.imk-asf.kit.edu/english/308.php

Short summary

Energetic particle precipitation (EPP) is the rain of solar energetic particles into the Earth's atmosphere. EPP is known to deplete O₃ in the polar mesosphere–upper stratosphere via the formation of NO_x. NO_x also causes chlorine deactivation in the lower stratosphere and has, thus, been proposed to potentially result in reduced ozone depletion in the spring. We provide the first evidence to show that NO_x formed by EPP is able to remove active chlorine, resulting in enhanced total ozone column.