Extrapolating future Arctic ozone losses

[摘要] Future increases in the concentration of greenhouse gases and water vapourmay cool the stratosphere further and increase the amount ofpolar stratospheric clouds (PSCs). Future Arctic PSC areas have beenextrapolated from the highly significant trends1958-2001. Using a tight correlation between PSC area and the totalvortex ozone depletion and taking the decreasing amounts of ozone depletingsubstances into account we make empirical estimates of future ozone. Theresult is that Arctic ozone losses increase until 2010-2015 and decrease onlyslightly afterwards. However, for such a long extrapolation into the futurecaution is necessary. Tentatively taking the modelled decrease in the ozone trendin the future into account results in almost constantozone depletions until 2020 and slight decreases afterwards. This approach isa complementary method of prediction to that based on the complex coupledchemistry-climate models (CCMs).

[学科分类] 大气科学