Identification

Title

An improved measure of ozone depletion in the Antarctic stratosphere

Abstract

Ozone mass deficit is a commonly used index to quantify Antarctic ozone depletion. However, as currently defined, this measure is not robust with respect to reflecting chemical ozone loss within the Antarctic vortex. Therefore, in this study, a new definition of ozone mass deficit (OMD) is developed. The 220 Dobson Unit based value currently used as the threshold for ozone depletion has been replaced with a new ozone background representative of pre-ozone-hole conditions. Second, the new OMD measure is based on ozone measurements within the dynamical vortex. A simpler method is also proposed whereby calculation of the vortex edge is avoided by using the average latitude of the vortex edge (62°S) as the spatial limiting contour. An indication of the errors in OMD introduced when using this simpler approach is provided. By comparing vortex average total ozone loss (defined using the new background and limiting contour) with partial column accumulated chemical ozone loss calculated with the tracer-tracer correlation method for 1992 - 2004 and in more detail for 1996 and 2003, it is shown that the new OMD measure is representative of chemical ozone loss within the vortex. In addition the new criteria have been applied to the calculation of ozone hole area. The sensitivity of the new measures to uncertainties in the background have been quantified. The new ozone loss measures underestimate chemical ozone loss in highly dynamically disturbed years (2002 and 2004), and criteria for identifying these years are presented. The new measures should aid chemistry-climate model intercomparisons since ozone biases in the models are avoided.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7z038dn

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2007-06-05T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact