Identification

Title

Trends and variability in stratospheric NOx derived from merged SAGE II and OSIRIS satellite observations

Abstract

Nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the stratosphere are produced from N2O, which is the dominant emission contributing to stratospheric ozone depletion in the 21st century and an important anthropogenic greenhouse gas. Decades worth of observations are required in order to quantify the variability and trends in stratospheric NOx so that we can better understand their impact on climate. Here we use the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) II, a solar occultation instrument that measured NO2 from 1984 to 2005, and the Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imager System (OSIRIS), a limb-scattering instrument that began measuring NO2 in 2001. By taking advantage of the 4-year overlap between these instruments it was possible to produce a merged data set of stratospheric NO2, spanning over 34 years. In order to merge the data a photochemical correction was applied to account for the different times of day at which the instruments measure, and to convert the NO2 to NOx. A linear regression model was applied to the merged, deseasonalized data set to identify variability associated with long-term trends, the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), and volcanic aerosols. High levels of aerosol associated with large volcanic eruptions were found to greatly influence the calculated trend; when volcanic periods are excluded the trend in NOx is around 10% per decade in the tropical lower stratosphere. In this case, the observed trends and variability from the satellite measurements show overall good agreement with simulations from the whole atmosphere community climate model (WACCM).

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7bv7kt9

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

2020-04-16T00:00:00Z

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