January ozone anomaly over the North Atlantic-European region: Longitude-dependent decadal change in total ozone during 1979-1992

Abstract

A large decrease in total ozone of up to more than 4 DU/yr occurred over Europe during January 1979-1992. This value is almost twice that of the zonal mean. A strong change of geopotential height of more than 2 dam/yr also existed in the tropopause region during the same period in the same area. It is shown that the anomaly (differences from the zonal mean) of total ozone and geopotential height of 300 hPa are significantly negative correlated in space and time. This strongly suggests that the ozone anomaly change is essentially caused by changes in those processes which determine the dynamics of the tropopause region.

Keywords

• total ozone
• geopotential
• tropopause
• ozone anomaly
• gesamtozon
• geopotentiell
• tropopause
• ozonanomalie