Record low ozone values over the Arctic in boreal spring 2020

Dameris, Martin; Loyola, Diego G.; Nützel, Matthias; Coldewey-Egbers, Melanie; Lerot, Christophe; Romahn, Fabian; van Roozendael, Michel

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-617-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-617-2021

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-617-2021

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

Articles | Volume 21, issue 2

Research article

|

18 Jan 2021

Research article |

| 18 Jan 2021

Record low ozone values over the Arctic in boreal spring 2020

Martin Dameris, Diego G. Loyola, Matthias Nützel, Melanie Coldewey-Egbers, Christophe Lerot, Fabian Romahn, and Michel van Roozendael

Data sets

Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate, ERA5 Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/#!/search?text=ERA5&type=dataset

CDO User Guide (Version 1.9.6) U. Schulzweida https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2558193

Short summary

Record low ozone values were observed in March 2020. Dynamical and chemical circumstances leading to low ozone values in spring 2020 are discussed and are compared to similar dynamical conditions in the Northern Hemisphere in 1996/1997 and 2010/2011. 2019/2020 showed an unusual persistent polar vortex with low stratospheric temperatures, which were permanently below 195 K at 50 hPa. This enabled enhanced formation of polar stratospheric clouds and a subsequent clear reduction of total ozone.