Air mass transport to the tropical western Pacific troposphere inferred from ozone and relative humidity balloon observations above Palau

Müller, Katrin; von der Gathen, Peter; Rex, Markus

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4693-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4693-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

StratoClim stratospheric and upper tropospheric processes...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-4693-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 8

Research article

|

19 Apr 2024

Research article |

| 19 Apr 2024

Air mass transport to the tropical western Pacific troposphere inferred from ozone and relative humidity balloon observations above Palau

Katrin Müller, Peter von der Gathen, and Markus Rex

Data sets

Ozone sonde and radio sonde data record Palau Atmospheric Observatory 2016-2021 (V1.0) Katrin Müller et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6920648

ATLAS Backward Trajectory Dataset for the Palau Atmospheric Observatory Balloon-borne ozonesonde record 2016-2019 Katrin Müller and Ingo Wohltmann https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8038600

ERA5 data ECMWF https://apps.ecmwf.int/data-catalogues/era5/?stream=moda&levtype=sfc&expver=1&type=an&class=ea

Short summary

The transport history of tropospheric air masses above the tropical western Pacific is studied by local ozone and relative humidity profile measurements from Palau. A prominent anti-correlation between both tracers separates air masses of different origin and genesis. Back trajectories confirm a local convective origin of the year-round humid ozone-poor background. Anomalously dry ozone-rich air is generated in tropical Asia by pollution and dehydrated during transport via radiative cooling.