Year: 2006
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Climate change will affect the evolution of the ozone layer through changes in transport, chemical composition, and temperature.In turn, changes to the ozone layer will affect climate through radiative processes, and consequential changes in temperature gradients will affect atmospheric dynamics.Therefore, climate change and the evolution of the ozone layer are coupled.Understanding all of the processes involved is made more complex by the fact that many of the interactions are nonlinear. Impact of Climate Change •The stratospheric cooling observed during the past two decades has slowed in recent years.Satellite and radiosonde measurements reveal an overall cooling trend in the global-mean lower stratosphere of approximately 0.5 K/decade over the 1979-2005 period, with a slowdown in the temperature decline since the late 1990s.The overall temperature decrease is punctuated by transient warmings of the stratosphere associated with the major volcanic eruptions in 1982 and 1991.Model calculations suggest that the observed ozone loss is the predominant cause of the cooling observed over this period.The lower stratospheric cooling is evident at all latitudes, in particular in both Arctic and Antarctic winter/spring lower stratosphere but with considerable interannual variability.Satellite observations show larger temperature trends in the upper stratosphere, with values of -1 to -2 K/decade, but little additional decline since the middle 1990s.Model calculations suggest that the upper stratosphere trends are due, roughly equally, to decreases in ozone and increases in CO 2 .• Future increases of greenhouse gas concentrations will contribute to the average cooling in the stratosphere.Estimates derived from climate models (AOGCMs, coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation models) and Chemistry-Climate Models (CCMs) with interactive ozone consistently predict continued cooling of the global average stratosphere.The predicted cooling rate within the next two decades is dependent on the prescribed scenario and the type of model used for the assessment.At 50 hPa an average of all AOGCMs gives approximately 0.1 K/decade, while CCMs predict a larger cooling of about 0.25 K/decade caused by the interactive consideration of ozone changes.All models calculate a stronger cooling at 10 hPa, averaging approximately 0.5 K/decade.Polar temperatures in the future are less certain than global mean temperatures because of greater natural variability.• Chemical reaction rates in the atmosphere are dependent on temperature, and thus the concentration of ozone is sensitive to temperature changes.Decreases in upper stratospheric temperature slow the rate of photochemical ozone destruction in this region.Hence the concentration of upper stratospheric ozone increases in response to cooling.Cooling of the polar lower stratosphere would lead to more efficient chlorine activation on aerosol and polar stratospheric clouds and enhanced ozone destruction.Therefore, the concentration of ozone in the springtime polar lower stratosphere would decrease in response to cooling.• Greenhouse-gas-induced temperature and circulation changes are expected to accelerate global ozone increases in the next decades.Two-dimensional latitude-height models, as well as CCMs, show that 1980 global mean total ozone values will be reached several years earlier than in a constant-temperature stratospheric environment. Impact on the Troposphere• Changes to the temperature and circulation of the stratosphere affect weather and climate of the troposphere.The response is seen largely as changes to the strength of the surface westerly winds in midlatitudes, and is found in both observations and model results.The strongest evidence for coupling is seen in the Northern Hemisphere during winter and in the Southern Hemisphere during spring.We do not have a complete understanding of the mechanisms that cause the stratosphere to affect the troposphere.• Stratospheric ozone depletion in the Southern Hemisphere appears to have caused circulation changes not only in the stratosphere, but in the troposphere as well.The observed cooling of the Antarctic lower stratosphere has led to an increase in the speed of the stratospheric westerly winds and an associated delay in the seasonal breakdown of the stratospheric polar vortex.Observations and model results suggest that the changes to the lower CLIMATE-OZONE CONNECTIONS 5.2stratosphere have contributed to the observed strengthening of midlatitude tropospheric winds and to cooling over the interior of Antarctica during December-February.As ozone recovers, tropospheric changes due to ozone loss are expected to reverse.However, temperature changes due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations may offset this reversal. Importance of Tropospheric Changes• Human activities are expected to affect stratospheric ozone through changes in emissions of trace gases.Enhanced methane (CH 4 ) emission (from wetter and warmer soils) is expected to enhance ozone production in the lower stratosphere, whereas a climate-driven increase in nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emission is expected to reduce ozone in the middle and high stratosphere.Also, changes in nonmethane hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide (NO x ) emissions are expected to affect the tropospheric concentrations of hydroxyl radical (OH) and, hence, impact the lifetime and concentration of stratospheric trace gases such as CH 4 and organic halogen species.• The exchange of air between the troposphere and the stratosphere is predicted to increase due to climate change.Model studies predict that the annual mean troposphere-to-stratosphere mass exchange rate is expected to increase significantly, which will also decrease the average time that air remains within the stratosphere.Another possible consequence is a counterbalance of the stratospheric cooling associated with increasing greenhouse gases by an increase in the descent and adiabatic heating in the polar stratosphere during winter and spring.The net effect could result in local stratospheric temperature increases confined to high northern latitudes during winter and spring. Importance of Water Vapor• Updated datasets of stratospheric water vapor concentrations now show differences in long-term behavior.Recent trend analyses, which are based on only two available multiyear datasets, casts doubt on the positive stratospheric water vapor trend that was noted in the previous Assessment.Balloonborne measurements at Boulder, Colorado, for the period 1980-2005 show a significant increase of 5-10% per decade over altitudes of 15-28 km.Global measurements from the Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) satellite instrument for 1991-2005 do not show corresponding positive lower stratospheric trends.Interannual water vapor changes derived from HALOE data exhibit quantitative agreement with temperature variations near the tropical tropopause.In contrast, the longterm increases inferred from the Boulder data are larger than can be explained by observed tropopause temperature changes or past increases in tropospheric methane.• Future changes of stratospheric water vapor concentrations are uncertain.If water vapor concentration increases in the future, there will be both radiative and chemical effects.Modeling studies suggest increased water vapor concentrations will enhance odd hydrogen (HO x ) in the stratosphere and subsequently influence ozone depletion.Increases in water vapor in the polar regions would raise the temperature threshold for the formation of polar stratospheric clouds, potentially increasing springtime ozone depletion. Importance of Volcanoes• If a major volcanic eruption occurs while stratospheric halogen loading is elevated, ozone will temporarily be depleted.Strong volcanic eruptions enhance stratospheric aerosol loading for two to three years.A global average increase of lower stratospheric temperature (about 1 K at 50 hPa) was observed following the eruptions of El Chichón and Mt.Pinatubo, and globally averaged total ozone significantly decreased by about 2% before recovering after about two to three years.Ozone destruction via heterogeneous reactions depends on halogen loading, so the effects on ozone of a major eruption are expected to decrease in the coming decades.For sufficiently low halogen loading, a large volcanic eruption would temporarily increase ozone.Long-term ozone recovery would not be significantly affected.
Authors: Mark Baldwin, M. Dameris, J. Austin, Slimane Bekki, B. Bregman, Neal Butchart, Eugene C. Cordero, Nathan P. Gillett, H.-F. Graf, C. Cranier, D. E. Kinnison, Shyam Lal, Thomas Peter, William J. Randel, John Scinocca, Drew Shindell, H. Struthers, Masanori Takahashi, David W. J. Thompson, David S. Battisti, Peter Braesicke, Rolando R. García, Peter Haynes, Elisa Manzini, Katja Matthes, Giovanni Pitari, V. Ramaswamy, K. H. Rosenlof, B. D. Santer, R. K. Scott, Andrea Stenke, Claudia Timmreck
Institutions: Max Planck Society, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
Language: English
Subfield: Atmospheric Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W823994117