Articles | Volume 25, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-943-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-943-2025
Research article
 | 
27 Jan 2025
Research article |  | 27 Jan 2025

Causes of growing middle-to-upper tropospheric ozone over the northwest Pacific region

Xiaodan Ma, Jianping Huang, Michaela I. Hegglin, Patrick Jöckel, and Tianliang Zhao

Related authors

Regulation of cloud particle spectra and vertical structure by sub-cloud aerosols: insights from aircraft observations and numerical simulations
Deyu Liu, Yue Chen, Sihan Liu, Honglei Wang, Jingyi Chen, Yang Yang, Zihan Wang, Kun Cui, and Tianliang Zhao
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 26, 5781–5797, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-5781-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-5781-2026, 2026
Short summary
Evaluation of stratospheric transport in three generations of Chemistry-Climate Models
Marta Abalos, Thomas Birner, Andreas Chrysanthou, Sean Davis, Alvaro de la Cámara, Sandip Dhomse, Hella Garny, Michaela I. Hegglin, Daan Hubert, Oksana Ivaniha, James Keeble, Marianna Linz, Daniele Minganti, Jessica Neu, David Plummer, Laura Saunders, Kasturi Shah, Gabriele Stiller, Kleareti Tourpali, Darryn Waugh, Nathan Luke Abraham, Hideharu Akiyoshi, Martyn P. Chipperfield, Patrick Jöckel, Béatrice Josse, Marion Marchand, Patrick Martineau, Olaf Morgenstern, Timofei Sukhodolov, Shingo Watanabe, and Yousuke Yamashita
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 26, 5249–5291, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-5249-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-5249-2026, 2026
Short summary
A high-resolution tropopause folding dataset over China from 2014–2023
Yujia Yang, Le Cao, Liqiang Xu, Mengke Wang, Qingjian Yang, Yuqing Zhang, Tianqi Zhang, Xiuli Lei, Jiangpeng Miao, and Tianliang Zhao
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 18, 2689–2702, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-2689-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-2689-2026, 2026
Short summary
Transport of volcanic aerosol from the Raikoke eruption in 2019 through the Northern Hemisphere
Zhen Yang, Bärbel Vogel, Felix Plöger, Zhixuan Bai, Dan Li, Sabine Griessbach, Lars Hoffmann, Frank G. Wienhold, Elizabeth Asher, Alexandre A. Baron, Katie R. Smith, Troy Thornberry, Jianchun Bian, and Michaela I. Hegglin
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 26, 4749–4769, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-4749-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-4749-2026, 2026
Short summary
AIRTRAC v2.0: a Lagrangian aerosol tagging submodel for the analysis of aviation SO4 transport patterns
Jin Maruhashi, Mattia Righi, Monica Sharma, Johannes Hendricks, Patrick Jöckel, Volker Grewe, and Irene C. Dedoussi
Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 2747–2784, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-2747-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-2747-2026, 2026
Short summary

Cited articles

Akritidis, D., Pozzer, A., and Zanis, P.: On the impact of future climate change on tropopause folds and tropospheric ozone, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 14387–14401, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-14387-2019, 2019. 
Albers, J. R., Perlwitz, J., Butler, A. H., Birner, T., Kiladis, G. N., Lawrence, Z. D., Manney, G. L., Langford, A. O., and Dias, J.: Mechanisms governing interannual variability of stratosphere-to-troposphere ozone transport, J. Geophys. Res., 123, 234–260, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JD026890, 2018. 
Bak, J., Baek, K.-H., Kim, J.-H., Liu, X., Kim, J., and Chance, K.: Cross-evaluation of GEMS tropospheric ozone retrieval performance using OMI data and the use of an ozonesonde dataset over East Asia for validation, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 12, 5201–5215, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-12-5201-2019, 2019. 
Baray, J.-L., Daniel, V., Ancellet, G., and Legras, B.: Planetary-scale tropopause folds in the southern subtropics, Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 353–356, https://doi.org/10.1029/1999GL010788, 2000. 
Birner, T. and Bönisch, H.: Residual circulation trajectories and transit times into the extratropical lowermost stratosphere, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 817–827, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-817-2011, 2011. 
Download
Short summary

Our research explored changes in ozone levels in the northwest Pacific region over 30 years, revealing a significant increase in the middle-to-upper troposphere, especially during spring and summer. This rise is influenced by both stratospheric and tropospheric sources, which affect climate and air quality in East Asia. This work underscores the need for continued study to understand underlying mechanisms.

Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint