Analysis of the influence that climatic variability has on the formation of the total-ozone-content field at extratropical latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere

Having applied the method of discriminant analysis to the TOMS data of satellite sounding of the total ozone content (TOC) in the March months of 1979–2008, the authors could make a new estimate of the TOC field variability in the Northern Hemisphere and interlongitudinal regularities of its changes under the action of climatic variability. The effects of temperature variations in the polar stratosphere, El Niño, and quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) have proven comparable and reach 80 DU in some regions. The influence of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) reaches 40 DU. The regions of TOC variations and their location and dimensions change depending on the phases of QBO, AO, and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Three regions of increased TOC—over Europe, Eastern Siberia, and the Pacific Ocean—are formed in years with a warm stratosphere. A compensating TOC decrease takes place in the tropics and over Greenland. In the years of El Niño and the easterly QBO phase, the TOC increases over Europe and drops over the central Pacific, as well as to the south from 45° N. The AO controls the ozone growth over most of Eurasia at temperate latitudes and its weak drop over the Atlantic. It was impossible to obtain such quantitative estimates with the use of methods based on an independent analysis of the TOC series at individual points of the coordinate grid. Testing with the Monte Carlo method confirmed that the results obtained are significant with a probability of 95–99.9%.