Quantifying the contribution of transport to Antarctic springtime ozone column variability

Kessenich, Hannah E.; Seppälä, Annika; Smale, Dan; Rodger, Craig J.; Weber, Mark

doi:10.5194/acp-25-17527-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 23

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-17527-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-17527-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 23

Research article

|

03 Dec 2025

Research article |

| 03 Dec 2025

Quantifying the contribution of transport to Antarctic springtime ozone column variability

Hannah E. Kessenich, Annika Seppälä, Dan Smale, Craig J. Rodger, and Mark Weber

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-17527-2025-supplement

Data sets

MLS/Aura Level 2 Ozone (O3) Mixing Ratio V005 M. Schwartz et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/MLS/DATA2516

MLS/Aura Level 2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) Mixing Ratio V005 M. Schwartz et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/Aura/MLS/DATA2506

3d,6-Hourly,Instantaneous,Pressure-Level,Analysis,Analyzed Meteorological Fields V5.12.4 Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) https://doi.org/10.5067/A7S6XP56VZWS

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Short summary

We use observational data to track a mass of mesospheric air which descends into the Antarctic polar vortex each spring. The altitude of the air mass at the end of October is used to create a new diagnostic metric. The metric captures the dynamical conditions of the vortex and can be used to estimate the amount of poleward ozone transport in October. When used as a proxy for October polar total column ozone, the metric explains the majority (63%) of the observed variance from 2004–2024.