Is There a Hole in the Global OH Shield Over the Tropical Western Pacific Warm Pool?
Markus Rex (Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research), Theo Ridder (Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen), Justus Notholt (Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen), Franz Immler (GRUAN lead centre, German Meteorological Service), Kirstin Krüger, Viktoria Mohr and Susann Tegtmeier (IFM-GEOMAR)
Hundreds of organic species are emitted into the atmosphere mostly from biogenic processes. The rapid breakdown by reactions with OH radicals prevents most of them from reaching the stratosphere. Hence, the omnipresent layer of OH in the troposphere shields the stratosphere from these emissions and is particularly relevant for those species that do not photolyse efficiently. The dominant source of OH in clean tropical air are reactions involving ozone. Hence the OH concentration is closely coupled to ozone abundances. Biogenic halogenated species, biogenic species containing sulphur and perhaps anthropogenic SO2 emissions play an important role in the stratospheric composition and ozone chemistry. Changes in their abundance and tropospheric breakdown processes provide an ozone climate feedback mechanism. The dominant source of OH in clean tropical air is the photolysis of ozone at wavelengths shorter than about 340 nm producing O(1D) radicals followed by the reaction O(1D) + H2O -> OH + OH. This couples the OH concentration and hence the oxidizing capacity of tropospheric air closely to the concentration of ozone. The area of the Western Pacific warm pool is known to be key for troposphere to stratosphere exchange (e.g., Newell & Gould-Stewart, JAS, 1981; Fueglistaler et al., JGR, 2004). Vertical profiles of tropospheric ozone or OH from that part of the Pacific are not available so far. Measurements from the south east edge of the warm pool area during the Central Equatorial Pacific Experiment in 1993 (Kley et al., Science, 1996) and individual profiles from the station Samoa in the same geographical area (Solomon et al., GRL, 2005) showed extremely low ozone concentrations in the marine boundary layer and at tropopause level but still significant amounts of ozone in most of the free troposphere, where most of the oxidation of biogenic species occurs. We report ship based ozonesonde measurements from the center of the Western Pacific warm pool in October 2009. During a 2500-km portion of the ship track between 10S and 15N we found ozone concentrations below the detection limit of the sondes throughout the troposphere. Based on comprehensive CTM modelling we show that the observations suggest the existence of a pronounced minimum in the tropospheric OH column well correlated with the region where most of the vertical transport of air into the stratosphere occurs. The consequences for the tropospheric lifetimes of chemical species in that key geographical area and implications for the transport of emissions from that area into the stratosphere will be discussed. The results highlight the importance of setting up longer term observational capabilities in the westernmost part of the tropical Pacific.
http://ndacc2011.univ-reunion.fr/fileadmin/documents/Abstracts_and_documents/abstracts/Abstracts_Session_5.pdf
Blog Archive
-
▼
2012
(1039)
-
▼
January
(105)
- PEOPLE UNDER 35 HAVE NEVER SEEN NORMAL GLOBAL TEMP...
- Arctic climate change 'to spark domino effect, acc...
- Andrew Glikson: Trends and tipping point in the cl...
- Future of human kind faces dire consequences due t...
- Estimating the global radiative impact of the sea ...
- Dynamic response of oceanic hydrate deposits to oc...
- Arctic Oscillation flips to extreme negative; temp...
- NASA's JPL: Study Solves Case of Earth's 'Missing ...
- Sam Carana: The potential for methane releases in ...
- Excerpt (i.e., the good bits) from James Hansen's ...
- James Hansen: Cowards in Our Democracy -- Part 1
- Wall Street Journal's infamous op-ed authors -- th...
- Arctic Sea Ice in deplorable state -- enormous lea...
- Gary Houser's rebuttal: RealClimate's David Archer...
- Awesome cool! Michael Ashley at the South Pole! ...
- Large-Scale Simulation of Methane Hydrate Dissocia...
- Andrew Glikson: As emissions rise, we may be headi...
- The Motherlode! Free access to thousands of High N...
- Why is Indian Ocean warming consistently? by Surya...
- A link between Arctic sea ice and recent cooling t...
- Steve Horn: ALEC Model Bill Behind Push To Require...
- NASA Video Illustrates 130 Years of Global Warming...
- Arctic Ocean freshwater bulge detected
- Western Arctic Ocean freshwater storage increased ...
- Immense 'dome' of fresh water bulging atop Arctic ...
- Arctic Temperatures Continue Rapid Rise as 2011 Br...
- Methane belches (?) from Laptev Sea, January 1 thr...
- Brad Johnson: Meet The 40 Members of The Congressi...
- Forecast The Facts Exposes America’s Climate-Denie...
- Greedy Lying Bastards: US filmmaker attacks oil in...
- From Idiot Tracker: Methane: a worse worst-case sc...
- Bombshell: Energy Experts Call on Breakthrough Ins...
- 2011: The 9th hottest year on record
- Campaign Urges American Meteorological Society to ...
- Russian rivers freshening the water of Alaska's Be...
- Inuit hunters buttress theory Arctic Ocean is appr...
- Global Temperature in 2011, Trends, and Prospects ...
- Latest methane measurements for December 2011, by ...
- Arctic methane outgassing on the East Siberian Arc...
- If you were Speaker of the House... (John Boehner...
- Russia warming at double world pace
- Cato Institute's Patrick Michaels: Serial Deleter ...
- Trial convicts fossil fuel bosses of ‘Ecocide’
- The Silence of the Bees
- Climate change impacts on international seaports: ...
- Methane gas likely spewing into the oceans through...
- Neela Banerjee, LA Times: Climate change skepticis...
- On carbon transport and fate in the East Siberian ...
- Bill Moyers: What stands between us and the soluti...
- Two amazing videos of climate scientist and evange...
- Earth Observatory: Greenland’s Ice Is Growing Dark...
- Arctic methane outgassing on the East Siberian Arc...
- Jeff Masters: Extreme temperatures of 2011: 7 nati...
- Nome Fuel Delivery Exposes Serious Concerns for Ar...
- Shell Oil, still with no viable spill cleanup plan...
- Water vapor intrusions into the High Arctic during...
- Canada's EthicalOil.org, hardly ethical, funded by...
- Reuters: Investors: private sector must tackle cl...
- Kerry Emanuel: Science Self-Corrects Even When Sci...
- Marc Morano -- scum of the earth -- abets emailed ...
- Tom Smerling: 2011′s wettest and driest, in techn...
- Cornell: "Almost All" Keystone XL Jobs Will Be Tem...
- MIT Climate Scientist Kerry Emanuel's wife threate...
- Canadian climate scientist, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, ...
- AFL-CIO Head Rich Trumka: ‘Congress Is Effectively...
- Joseph Romm: RealClimate Is Alarmed by Arctic Meth...
- The Runaway Greenhouse Effect – James Hansen
- NewScientist: Boom and doom: Revisiting prophecies...
- Fracking Moratorium Urged as Doctors Call for Heal...
- Must-see video on AGU sea level rise research, wit...
- Newt Gingrich dumps book chapter by evangelical Ch...
- 2011 Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Comp...
- South Pole Records Warmest Temperature on Record, ...
- 2008 Shakhova et al., EGU abstract: Anomalies of m...
- Andrew Freedman, Climate Central: High Temperature...
- Water flows from the glaciers of Peru’s Cordillera...
- Semiletov and Shakhova explain concerns over Arcti...
- Call for Arctic geoengineering as soon as possible...
- Jeff Masters: Remarkably dry and warm winter due t...
- Pasture occupies 60% of the deforested area in the...
- Brad Johnson: Record Heat Floods America With Temp...
- Mike Klink: Keystone XL pipeline not safe
- Hansen et al.: “Extreme Heat Waves … in Texas and ...
- GOP Climate Hawks Caught On Video: watch New Hamps...
- Comparison of subsea hydrate stability between pal...
- Recent satellite images of the Arctic
- Arctic Sea Ice Volume (from Stu Ostro's marvelous ...
- NSIDC, Arctic Sea Ice Report of January 5, 2012: P...
- Potential sea-level rise impacts in East Boston
- Canada's Athabasca Oil Sands Corp said it has sold...
- Peter Gleick: The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year ...
- Eurasian soils froze less deeply in winter from la...
- Intimidation Campaign by Extreme Right-Wing Contin...
- Awesome video! I Vote 4 Energy: Polluting the Future
- Nature: Changing Arctic Ocean freshwater pathways...
- Insurers have warned Australians to brace for more...
- NASA-JPL finds Russian river runoff freshening Can...
- David Attenborough: Frozen Planet was not alarmist...
- Peter Sinclair: Myth of the Mini Ice Age [Climate ...
- James Hansen, M. Sato & R. Ruedy: Quantifying Extr...
-
▼
January
(105)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment