Effect of the 11-year cycle of solar activity on characteristics of the total ozone annual variation

The goal of the paper is an analysis of changes in the amplitude and phase characteristics of the annual variation (AC) of total ozone (TO) from ground-based and satellite (TOMS) measurements and their interpretation with a two-dimensional photochemical model. According to ground-based TO measurements, two characteristic types of quasi-decadal variations in the phase of the annual harmonic (AH) of total ozone have been noted: variations in phase and antiphase with solar activity (SA). Changes in the TO AH phase opposite to solar activity variation are noted the high latitudes of the North Atlantic region and in the tropical belt, and in-phase changes are observed in the middle and subtropical latitudes of both hemispheres. Variations in the TO AH amplitude (hence, in the TO AV amplitude) and in the annual mean TO usually coincide in phase with the SA cycle. Analysis of satellite data shows that the 0-phase of the AV and the phase of the AH of the zonal mean TO at middle latitudes vary synchronously with the 11-year solar cycle. Model simulations have shown that the stratospheric ozone influx to the middle latitudes increases in the fall and winter period during a period of maximum solar activity. This dynamic mechanism accounts for up to 30% of the winter ozone increase in the ozone maximum layer in the Southern Hemisphere midlatitudes during the solar maximum as compared with the solar minimum. In the northern midlatitudes, the dynamic mechanism makes the main contribution to ozone changes during the latter half of winter under SA variations. The stratospheric ozone inflow change induced by SA variations affects the annual variation of ozone.     

A very deep ozone minihole in the Northern Hemisphere stratosphere at mid‐latitudes during the winter of 2000

Ozone miniholes appear on total ozone maps as localized ozone minima with horizontal extents of a few hundreds of kilometres. They are characterized by a rapid and small‐scale appearance of a columnar ozone decrease with an equally rapid recovery after a few days. They are frequently observed at Northern Hemisphere mid‐latitudes in winter. Evolving too rapidly to be the result of an ozone chemical destruction, miniholes should be the result of meteorological processes. According to some authors, miniholes should be due to the northeast motions of air patches with low total ozone content. However, several studies attribute the formation of ozone miniholes to the uplift of air masses, which decreases the ozone columnar content by simply decreasing the pressure thickness of the ozone layer, without changing the mixing ratio. According to these studies, the latter mechanism explains the main reduction of ozone that occurs between the tropopause and the ozone maximum during an ozone minihole event. A region of extreme low ozone values passed over Europe from 27 to 30 November 2000. The total ozone values were measured with the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS). A radio sounding, launched on 29 November 2000 from Payerne at the place and time of the deepening of the minihole, allows us to perform a detailed analysis of its formation mechanism. It is shown that the uplift of isentropic surfaces plays an important role in the columnar ozone decrease and explains the lower part of the depleted ozone profile. However, the deepening of the minihole is explained by another mechanism: namely, at this time the minihole air column intersects the polar vortex at high altitudes and then encounters ozone‐poor air masses.     

The vertical structure of the atmospheric boundary layer over the central Arctic Ocean

The tropopause height and the atmospheric boundarylayer （PBL） height as well as the variation of inversion layer above the floating ice surface are presented using GPS （global position system ） radiosonde sounding data and relevant data obtained by Chinas fourth arctic scientific expedition team over the central Arctic Ocean （86°-88°N, 144°-170°W） during the summer of 2010. The tropopause height is from 9.8 to 10.5 km, with a temperature range between -52.2 and -54.10C in the central Arctic Ocean. Two zones of maximum wind （over 12 m/s） are found in the wind profile, namely, low- and upper-level jets, located in the middle troposphere and the tropopause, respectively. The wind direction has a marked variation point in the two jets from the southeast to the southwest. The average PBL height determined by two methods is 341 and 453 m respectively. These two methods can both be used when the inversion layer is very low, but the results vary significantly when the inversion layer is very high. A significant logarithmic relationship exists between the PBL height and the inversion intensity, with a correlation coefficient of 0.66, indicating that the more intense the temperature inversion is, the lower the boundary layer will be. The observation results obviously differ from those of the third arctic expedition zone （800-85° N）. The PBL height and the inversion layer thickness are much lower than those at 870-88° N, but the inversion temperature is more intense, meaning a strong ice- atmosphere interaction in the sea near the North Pole. The PBL structure is related to the weather system and the sea ice concentration, which affects the observation station.     

Variability of the Southern Hemisphere Subtropical Jet Stream in the Second Half of the 20th Century and Early 21st Century

Latitudinal position and wind speed of the Southern Hemisphere subtropical jet stream have been investigated on the basis of ERA-Interim, JRA-55, and NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data for 1948–2013. The analysis covers different time intervals in summer and winter seasons, as well as different spatial domains. It has been shown that the variability of the southern jet stream parameters in both winter and summer seasons is predominantly characterized by wind-speed weakening on the jet-stream axis and its poleward shift. The winter seasons of 2000–2013 identified a shift in the jet-stream axis toward the equator in the Atlantic (60°–0° W) and African (0°–60° E) sectors; the wind-speed increase in the Atlantic sector was statistically significant. The wind speed on the jet-stream axis in both winter and summer is closely related to the temperature difference in the upper tropospheric layer of 200–400 hPa between the latitudinal zones of 0°–30° S and 30°–60° S. A significant negative correlation (r = ?0.78) between wind speed and temperature difference has been revealed for the winter season in the upper tropospheric layer between the latitudinal zones of 30°–60° S and 60°–90° S, which can be explained by the Southern Annular Mode variability in this season. No such relationship has been found for the summer season.     

Estimation of water-vapor and ozone transport in the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere and fluxes through the tropopause during the field campaign at the Sodankyla station (Finland)

Processes of mass exchange through the tropopause at extratropical latitudes are studied. For this purpose, balloon data on ozone and water vapor obtained during the LAUTLOS field campaign were analyzed and a trajectory model was used to analyze the origin of air masses and to calculate fluxes through the tropopause. The results of observations and trajectory modeling showed that tropospheric air masses penetrated into the stratosphere by no more than ～2.5 km above the tropopause level during the campaign. Both tropospheric and stratospheric particles are present in this mixing layer. Backward trajectories showed that, at the anticyclone boundary, tropospheric air penetrates into the stratosphere in the form of fine fibrous structures (filaments). The fluxes through the tropopause were also quantitatively estimated by the Wei method with the use of forward and backward trajectories. The spatial structure of the fluxes through the tropopause coincides with the regions of the tropopause inclination and its folds. The absolute values of the fluxes calculated with the use of the Wei method decrease, depending on the length of trajectories at the expense of the filtering-out of a shallow reversible exchange. It is shown that the exchange depth can be controlled by both vertical fluxes in the troposphere and changes in the level of the tropopause itself. The use of isentropic and three-dimensional trajectories made it possible to estimate the contribution of nonadiabatic processes to the stratosphere-troposphere exchange.     

A Lagrangian computation of stratosphere–troposphere exchange in a tropopause‐folding event in the subtropical Southern Hemisphere

A new Lagrangian technique to calculate the air mass flux across potential vorticity ( Q ) surfaces has been used to perform a case study of a tropopause‐folding event in the subtropical Southern Hemisphere. The flux is computed from the rate of change in Q along trajectories, which are calculated from ECMWF wind data. Because the tropopause can be defined as a Q surface, the method can be used for the calculation of stratosphere–troposphere exchange (STE). A large number of forward and backward trajectories were calculated, starting in the vicinity of the tropopause fold. This fold was observed during the TRACAS (TRAnsport of Chemical species Across the Subtropical tropopause) experiment at La Reunion (21°S, 55°E) in July 1998. With the Lagrangian method the cross tropopause air mass flux can be calculated for the different tropopause levels, that occur in case of a tropopause folding. The computed mass exchange is about −20×10¹³ kg (i.e., downward) in 4.5 days, which is rather small compared to other (midlatitude) mass exchange studies. The ratio of the fluxes per unit of area in and outside of the fold is about 200 : 1. An indication of the accuracy of the calculated fluxes has been obtained with the help of the ozone soundings made during the TRACAS experiment.     

Long-term variability of winter mixed layer depth and temperature along the Kuroshio jet in a high-resolution ocean general circulation model

To explore the causes of the winter shallow mixed layer and high sea surface temperature (SST) along the strong Kuroshio jet from the East China Sea to the upstream Kuroshio extension (25.5°N–150°E) during 1988–1994 when the Japanese sardine stocks collapsed, high-resolution ocean general circulation model (OGCM) hindcast data are analyzed with a bulk mixed layer model which traces particles at the mixed layer base. The shallow mixed layer and high SST along the Kuroshio jet are mainly caused by the acceleration of the Kuroshio current velocity and the reduction of the surface cooling. Because the acceleration reduces the time during which the mixed layer is exposed to wintertime cooling, deepening and cooling of the winter mixed layer are restricted. The weaker surface cooling due to less severe meteorological forcing also causes the shallow mixed layer and the high SST. The impact of the strong heat transport along the Kuroshio extends to the southern recirculation gyre of the Kuroshio/Kuroshio extension regions; previous indications that the Japanese sardine recruitment is correlated with the winter SST and the mixed layer depth (MLD) in the Kuroshio extension recirculation region could be related to the velocity, SST, and MLD near the Kuroshio axis which also could affect the variability of North Pacific subtropical water.     

Analysis of the weekly cycle in the atmosphere near Moscow

Using the spectral method and the method of grouping by days of week, we analyzed the weekly cycles by standard air sounding data obtained at the Dolgoprudny station near Moscow and by the results of measurements of NO₂ content in the stratosphere and the atmospheric boundary layer at the Zvenigorod Research Station of the Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, in 1990–2010. We revealed weekly cycles of the NO₂ content in the vertical column of the stratosphere, temperature, geopotential, meridional wind velocity in the troposphere and lower stratosphere, and the tropopause height in the warm half of the year (mid-April to mid-October). The weekly variations in temperature in the troposphere are positive in the first half of the week and negative in the second half, and the variations in temperature in the tropopause layer and in the lower stratosphere are opposite in sign to the tropospheric variations. The weekly cycle of the tropopause height is approximately in phase with the cycle of tropospheric temperature, and the weekly cycle of the NO₂ content in the stratospheric column is opposite in phase to the cycle of the tropopause height. Weekly variations were also observed in the total ozone content over Moscow. This finding was confirmed by calculations based on regression relationships between the vertical distribution of ozone and tropopause height. Conceptual mechanisms of weekly cycles were proposed.     

Variations in the surface ozone concentration in the atmosphere over Ulan-Ude

The results of regular measurements of the surface ozone concentration (SOC) in Ulan-Ude over an observation period of six years (1999–2004) are given. The maximum of daily variations in SOC is observed at local noon. The radiation regime is found to have a significant influence only on the minimum values in the SOC seasonal cycle. It is also found that the principal maxima of total ozone content (TOC) and SOC in the seasonal cycle are, on average, shifted by three months (the TOC maximum is reached at the end of March, and the SOC maximum is reached in June).     

北冰洋80°～85°N浮冰区对流层大气的垂直结构

利用2008年夏季中国第3次北冰洋考察所获取的GPS探空资料对北冰洋(79°～85.5°N,144°～170°W)浮冰区对流层大气的垂直结构进行了研究.结果表明:北冰洋浮冰区对流层中部大气的平均温度递减率为6.47℃/km;对流层顶高度为8.0～10.7 km,平均为9.3 km,对流层顶温度为-59.4～-43.5℃...     

Flow over mountains with the stream velocity shear

The dependence of orographic disturbances of the atmosphere on properties of the incident flow is studied within the semianalytic approach. Reducing the initial system of equations of hydrothermodynamics to a single equation for an associative stream function makes it possible to consider a class of solutions of a sufficiently general type when the background velocity of the wind and the Lyra’s scale vary with height. It is shown that the dependence of the solution on the indicated factors can be not only strong, but also sufficiently unexpected. In particular, with the monotonic growth in the wind velocity in the troposphere, which corresponds to conditions of a jet stream near the tropopause, disturbances at low and medium heights can acquire an almost resonant and waveguide nature.     

Methane emergence in the atmosphere during its pulsed release from the lithosphere

The dynamic equilibrium of the ozone layer can be locally disturbed when considerable volumes of methane penetrate into the stratosphere as a result of powerful emissions of methane from the lithosphere. Calculations indicate that, in order to break through the tropopause, the methane emission is bound to be greater than 10⁹ m³; such emissions are related to unique poorly studied phenomena. The performed studies of the methane emergence height (which can increase owing to hydrogen adding, joint emergence of a periodic system of methane bubbles located in the same plane near the Earth’s surface, or emergence of two coaxial bubbles released at different times) have demonstrated that the methane maximum emergence height does not change radically.     

Specific features of the size distribution of atmospheric aerosol in the continent-ocean transition zone

The distribution functions of atmospheric aerosol obtained on the basis of lidar sounding and photometric measurements over marine water areas in continental and transition zones are analyzed. Changes in the microphysical parameters of the distribution function in the continent-ocean transition zone with height are considered on the basis of data taken from three-frequency lidar sounding. Specific features of changes in the particle size distribution with height during intense dust storms and records of volcanogenic aerosol in the tropopause region in the summer of 2008 are described.     

The North Atlantic nutrient stream

Western boundary currents are the locus of intense nutrient transport, or nutrient streams. The largest fraction of this transport takes place in the upper-thermocline layers, between the surface layers (where speed reaches a maximum) and the nutrient bearing strata of the subtropical gyres (where nutrient concentration is maximum). The core of the nutrient stream of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre is located slightly offshore the Gulf Stream, its density coordinate centered on the 26.5–27.3_–band, approximately constant along the axis of the stream. During late spring and summer the nutrient stream reaches the surface seasonal mixed layer at the outcropping of this isopycnal band. We argue that this must be a principal factor sustaining the seasonal high productivity of the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean. Additionally, we investigate the possibility of intermittent shear-induced diapycnal mixing in the upper-thermocline layers of the Gulf Stream, induced by frontogenesis taking place during some phase of the meanders. Here we illustrate that diapycnal mixing has a maximum at the location of the nutrient stream, being associated to observed nutrient anomalies. We suggest that diapycnal mixing associated to the passage of steep meanders brings nutrients from the nutrient stream to the shallow photic layers, and sustains intermittent (day-to-week) patchy (10–100 km) productivity over the stream itself.     

南极威德尔海区域海冰异常对初夏东亚大气环流和天气影响的数值研究

利用经过改变用于长期数值预报的CCM1(R15L7)模式以1975年1月16日00Z模式适应场为初始场积分5个月,研究南极威德尔海附近(60°W～30°E)海冰的面积异常对东亚初夏环流转换季节的影响.发现当南极海冰偏多时,在亚洲北部冷空气活动在初夏仍然很多,势力还很强,东亚南北两支急流分支仍很明显,各种环流特征更偏向于冬季型,不利于东亚初夏的环流季节转换.海冰异常偏少时则相反,亚洲北部的冷空气活动明显减弱,南方暖气流势力明显加强北移,东亚的两支急流也趋于合并北抬,环流形势更接近于夏季型,海冰的减少促进了东亚初夏的环流季节转换过程.     

孟加拉湾北部逆温现象的观测特征及机制分析

在冬季,孟加拉湾北部存在显著的季节性逆温现象。利用Argo浮标和锚碇浮标资料,分析了冬季孟加拉湾逆温现象的观测特征和维持机制。结果表明,系统性的逆温现象主要局限于15°N以北的区域,它最早于11月份出现在恒河、伊洛瓦底江和戈达瓦里河的河口区域。逆温的强度及分布区域在1月份达到最大,随后从西南部逐步退化,3月逆温现象基本消失。冬季的逆温层位于障碍层之中,厚度在35 m左右,最大海温位于40~60 m深度,整层满足静力稳定条件。对混合层温度和盐度的诊断表明,逆温的出现主要与冬季风导致的强烈海表热量损失有关,低盐水的平流过程也对逆温现象有一定的维持作用。     

Concentration of surface ozone, Obninsk, 2004–2010

The results of measurements of surface ozone in central European Russia in 2004–2010 are presented. The variation coefficient for hourly, monthly, and annual mean ozone concentrations is 78, 26, and 12%, respectively. The measurements established a link between increased (>60 μg/m³) and minimum (<12 μg/m³) hourly mean ozone concentrations with the existence of a temperature inversion in the lower 300-m atmospheric layer. Sixty-seven percent of the total number of increased hourly mean ozone concentrations over the 2004–2010 period took place in 2010. A maximum hourly mean ozone concentration of 218.5 μg/m³ was recorded at 17:00 on August 1, 2010. The annual mean ozone concentration in a climatically significant range of hourly mean concentrations from 12 to 60 μg/m³ increased by 45% in a linear approximation over the period of record. The spectral analysis of monthly mean concentrations of surface ozone identified composite oscillations with periods from 3 to 60 months. To approximate the temporal dynamics of ozone, a statistical model was used. This model satisfactorily describes the experimental monthly and annual mean concentrations.     

Spatiotemporal variation and mechanisms of temperature inversion in the Bay of Bengal and the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean

In the northern Bay of Bengal, the existence of intense temperature inversion during winter is a widely accepted phenomenon. However, occurrences of temperature inversion during other seasons and the spatial distribution within and adjacent to the Bay of Bengal are not well understood. In this study, a higher resolution spatiotemporal variation of temperature inversion and its mechanisms are examined with mixed layer heat and salt budget analysis utilizing long-term Argo（2004 to 2020） and RAMA（2...     

珠江三角洲大气边界层温度与流场垂直分布特征

利用顺德地区1988年1月和7月大气边界层1500m内温度、风场资料,分析不同季节、不同稳定度的温度与风场廓线特征。研究表明,夏季温、风垂直增长率大、增值均匀;冬季近地层增长率特别大,向上趋平缓。逆温层在冬季的频率较高,而且在适当天气条件下出现的平流逆温持续时间亦相当长。温、风垂直分布较复杂,很难用直观的简易函数关系表示。因此,沿用各种经验公式时,必须注意在特定地区的实用性。     

The effect of meteorology on air pollution in Moscow during the summer episodes of 2010

Relations between short-term variations in the concentrations of aerosol (PM₁₀) and carbon monoxide (CO) and meteorological characteristics are considered for the episodes of severe atmospheric pollution in the region of Moscow in the summer of 2010. The assumption is made and substantiated that the observed (in late June) severe aerosol pollution of the atmosphere over Moscow was caused by air masses arrived from soil-drought regions of southern Russia. In August, during the episodes of advection of forest-fire products, the maximum surface concentrations of pollutants were observed in Moscow mainly at 11:00–12:00 under a convective burst into the atmospheric boundary layer and at night in the presence of local wind-velocity maxima or low-level jet streams within the inversion layer. On the basis of results from an analysis of these air-pollution episodes before and after fires, it is concluded that the shearing instability of wind velocity favors the surface-air purification under ordinary conditions and an increase in the surface concentrations of pollutants during their advection (long-range transport, natural-fire plumes, etc.). It is shown that the pollution of the air basin over the megapolis with biomass-combustion products in 2010 led to an increase in the thermal stability of the atmospheric surface layer and in the duration of radiation inversions, as well as to an attenuation of the processes of purification in the urban heat island.