Ozone perturbations in the Arctic summer lower stratosphere as a reflection of NOX chemistry and planetary scale wave activity -: art. no. D03304

[1] Ozone concentration perturbations in the high-latitude lower stratosphere in the Northern Hemisphere were observed by Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer (ILAS) after the polar vortex breakdown at the beginning of May 1997 and until the end of June of that same year. Simulations and a passive tracer experiment using the Center for Climate System Research/National Institute for Environmental Studies (CCSR/NIES) nudging chemical transport model (CTM) show that the low-ozone perturbations observed in May were caused by the Arctic polar vortex debris, while those after the end of May resulted from a dynamical elongation due to zonal wave number 2 planetary waves of the low-ozone region in the summer polar stratosphere, which had been developed by the catalytic ozone destruction cycle of NOX. These low-O-3 air masses of different origin were advected or elongated from the polar region to the ILAS measurement points. An episodic event of a dynamical O-3 perturbation in June 1997 on a chemically induced meridional O-3 gradient is described. These results show that a timing of the polar vortex breakdown and activity of planetary waves after the breakdown may affect the O-3 background gradient in the summer lower stratosphere at middle and high latitudes.