Global distribution of total ozone and lower stratospheric temperature variations

[摘要] This study gives an overview of interannual variations of total ozone and50 hPa temperature. It is based on newer and longer records from the 1979 to 2001 Total Ozone Monitoring Spectrometer (TOMS) and Solar BackscatterUltraviolet (SBUV) instruments, and on US National Center for EnvironmentalPrediction (NCEP) reanalyses. Multiple linear least squares regression is usedto attribute variations to various natural and anthropogenic explanatory variables.Usually, maps of total ozone and 50 hPa temperature variations look very similar, reflecting a veryclose coupling between the two. As a rule of thumb, a 10 Dobson Unit (DU) change in total ozone corresponds to a1 K change of 50 hPa temperature. Large variations come from the linear trend term, up to-30 DU or -1.5 K/decade, from terms related to polar vortex strength, up to50 DU or 5 K (typical, minimum to maximum), from tropospheric meteorology, up to30 DU or 3 K, or from the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO), up to 25 DU or2.5 K. The 11-year solar cycle, up to 25 DU or 2.5 K, or El Niño/Southern Oscillation(ENSO), up to 10 DU or 1 K, are contributing smaller variations. Stratospheric aerosol afterthe 1991 Pinatubo eruption lead to warming up to 3 K at low latitudes and toozone depletion up to 40 DU at high latitudes. Variations attributed to QBO, polar vortexstrength, and to a lesser degree to ENSO, exhibit an inverse correlation betweenlow latitudes and higher latitudes. Variations related to the solar cycle or400 hPa temperature, however, have the same sign over most of the globe. Variations areusually zonally symmetric at low and mid-latitudes, but asymmetric at highlatitudes. There, position and strength of the stratospheric anti-cyclones over the Aleutians and south of Australia appear to vary with thephases of solar cycle, QBO or ENSO.

[学科分类] 大气科学