Identification

Title

An Arctic ozone hole in 2020 if not for the Montreal Protocol

Abstract

Without the Montreal Protocol, the already extreme Arctic ozone losses in the boreal spring of 2020 would be expected to have produced an Antarctic-like ozone hole, based upon simulations performed using the specified dynamics version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (SD-WACCM) and using an alternate emission scenario of 3.5 % growth in ozone-depleting substances from 1985 onwards. In particular, we find that the area of total ozone below 220 DU (Dobson units), a standard metric of Antarctic ozone hole size, would have covered about 20 million km2. Record observed local lows of 0.1 ppmv (parts per million by volume) at some altitudes in the lower stratosphere seen by ozonesondes in March 2020 would have reached 0.01, again similar to the Antarctic. Spring ozone depletion would have begun earlier and lasted longer without the Montreal Protocol, and by 2020, the year-round ozone depletion would have begun to dramatically diverge from the observed case. This extreme year also provides an opportunity to test parameterizations of polar stratospheric cloud impacts on denitrification and, thereby, to improve stratospheric models of both the real world and alternate scenarios. In particular, we find that decreasing the parameterized nitric acid trihydrate number density in SD-WACCM, which subsequently increases denitrification, improves the agreement with observations for both nitric acid and ozone. This study reinforces that the historically extreme 2020 Arctic ozone depletion is not cause for concern over the Montreal Protocol's effectiveness but rather demonstrates that the Montreal Protocol indeed merits celebration for avoiding an Arctic ozone hole.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7280c2z

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

2021-10-22T00:00:00Z

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