Lecturer: J. P. Pommereau, CNRS-LATMOS, Guyancourt, France Date: 2011-03-03 10:30 Place: Aniara
Arctic Ozone depletion: process studies during the European campaigns in Kiruna, influence of climate change and predictions. A record ozone depletion in the Arctic in 2011!
The discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985, and the threat of a similar event in the Arctic, prompted the start of ozone research in Europe. After first French-German balloon flights in 1987-89 in Kiruna in Northern Sweden within a CHEOPS project, an ambitious programme was set under the auspice of the General Direction Research of the European Commission. Under the direction of an “Ozone Panel†and an “Ozone Coordinating Unitâ€, several successive campaigns were set, involving balloon, aircraft and ground-based observations and associated modelling by a number of European and international scientists: EASOE in 1991-92, followed by SESAME in 1994-95, THESEO in 1998-99 and finally SOLVE-THESEO in 2000, a US-European collaborative effort. Altogether, they resulted in significant progress in ozone science and a large number of publications, but equally important, in the building of a strong European atmospheric scientific community and the development of powerful experimental and modelling tools of great use for the ongoing Chemistry-Climate research programmes.
The polar ozone depletion mechanism being now well understood, most important is to know how it could be influenced by climate change. Following the increase of GHG concentration, a progressive warming of the stratosphere is anticipated, leading to lesser PSCs in the winter and weaker ozone depletion. However, this is not already the case, as demonstrated by the winter 2011, where the stratospheric temperature was the coldest and the depletion the largest since the beginning of the observations in the early 1990s.
Created 2011-03-02 09:46:23 by Uwe Raffalski Last changed 2011-03-02 09:51:04 by Uwe Raffalski
