Identification

Title

Stratospheric temperature and ozone anomalies associated with the 2020 Australian New Year fires

Abstract

Stratospheric aerosol, temperature, and ozone anomalies after the 2020 Australian bushfires are documented from satellite observations. Aerosol extinction is enhanced in the Southern Hemisphere (SH) lower stratosphere (LS) in early 2020, comparable in magnitude to the Calbuco eruption in 2015. Warm temperature anomalies of 1–2 K occur in the SH LS during January-April 2020 and are coincident with enhanced aerosols. Radiative heating is indicated through anomalous temperature correlations between lower and higher latitudes. LS ozone shows midlatitude decreases several months after the aerosol maximum and before the polar vortex breakup, reaching extreme minima over the available OMPS record since 2011. Antarctic ozone depletion in the LS in 2020 reached a decadal low for both magnitude and persistence during November-December, along with record low polar temperatures and a strong polar vortex. Overall, the polar ozone depletion, temperature, and polar vortex evolution broadly resembled the effects of the Calbuco eruption in 2015.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7ks6w1t

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

2021-12-28T00:00:00Z

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

Copyright 2021 American Geophysical Union.

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

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 date

2025-07-11T16:08:17.036178

Metadata language

eng; USA