Assessing the role of planetary and gravity waves in the vertical structure of ozone over midlatitudinal Europe

Planetary and gravity waves play an important role in the dynamics of the atmosphere. They are present in the atmospheric distribution of temperature, wind, and ozone content. These waves are detectable also in the vertical profile of ozone and they cause its undulation. One of the structures occurring in the vertical ozone profile is laminae, which are narrow layers of enhanced or depleted ozone concentrations in the vertical ozone profile. They are connected with the total amount of ozone in the atmosphere and with the activity of the planetary and gravity waves. The aim of this paper is to quantify these processes in midlatitudinal Europe. We compare the occurrence of laminae induced by planetary waves (PL) with the occurrence of these induced by gravity waves (GL). We show that the PL are 10–20 times more frequent than that of GL. There is a strong annual variation of PL, while GL exhibit only a very weak variation. With the increasing lamina size the share of GL decreases and the share of PL increases. The vertical profile of lamina occurrence is different for PL and GL smaller than 2 mPa. For laminae greater than 2 mPa this difference is smaller.

Assessing the role of planetary and gravity waves on the vertical structure of ozone over central Europe

Planetary and gravity waves play an important role in the dynamics of the atmosphere. They are present in the atmospheric distribution of temperature, wind and ozone content. These waves are detectable also in the vertical profile of ozone and they cause its undulation. One of the structures occurring in the vertical ozone profile is laminae, which are narrow layers of enhanced or depleted ozone concentration in the vertical ozone profile. They are connected with the total amount of ozone in the atmosphere and with the activity of the planetary and the gravity waves. The aim of this paper is quantifying these processes in the central Europe. We compare the occurrence of laminae induced by planetary waves (PL) with the occurrence of these induced by gravity waves (GL). We show that the PL are 3–5 times more frequent than the gravity wave ones. There is a strong annual variation of PL, while GL exhibit only a very weak variation. With the increasing lamina size the share of GL decreases and the share of PL increases. The vertical profile of lamina occurrence is different for small planetary wave and gravity wave laminae. The trend of large lamina occurrence frequency is given by the trend in PL, not by GL.

An Estimate of the Vertical Ozone Profile Discrepancy between the Australian Brewer–Mast and Electrochemical Concentration Cell Ozonesondes

An analysis is described that provides an additive correction for referencing the vertical ozone profiles of the Australian Brewer–Mast (BM; October 1984–December 1990) ozonesonde to those of the electrochemical concentration cell (ECC; January 1991–December 1999) using approximately coincident Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) II satellite ozone profile data. Because Australian BM ozonesondes may have been prepared differently from BM ozonesondes elsewhere, other results of intercomparisons between the two different ozonesonde types cannot be used. However, the present results are consistent with previously reported intercomparison studies between these two ozonesonde types, where the lowest altitude tropospheric ozone levels measured by the BM ozonesonde were approximately 25% lower than the values measured by the ECC ozonesonde. The magnitudes of the BM corrections were found to be generally less than about 0.5 mPa in partial pressure up to an altitude of approximately 28 km. Without direct intercomparison measurements, the corrections given here provide the only means of removing the discontinuity in the Melbourne ozonesonde dataset that occurred when ECC ozonesondes replaced the BM ozonesondes in 1991.