Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

An investigation of the relation between total ozone and synoptic tropospheric disturbances

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/d791sj830

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  • It has been shown by Schlesinger and Mintz (1979) that the UCLA general circulation model (GCM) is able to simulate the observed negative correlation between the total amount of ozone in a vertical atmospheric column (the total ozone) and the eastward-propagating synoptic disturbances in the troposphere, with the total ozone maxima and minima located respectively at the troughs and ridges of the tropospheric waves. The goal of the present study was to understand how the GCM simulated this observed relationship. Our analysis shows that the transient-eddy total ozone disturbances were an omnipresent feature of the GCM January simulation in the northern hemisphere midlatitudes, just as they are in nature. It is also found that the transient-eddy total ozone disturbances in the northern hemisphere midlatitudes were closely related to the transient-eddy geopotential heights there throughout the entirety of the simulation. Furthermore, the correlations between these two quantities are negative up to the 72 mb level and attain their largest negative values at the 300 mb level. The analysis also shows that the transient-eddy disturbances in the stratosphere are out of phase with their counterparts in the troposphere, in accord with what would be expected from Dines compensation. In the GCM simulation there is a well-defined positive correlation between the total ozone and the ozone content in each of the model layers in the upper troposphere and lower and middle stratosphere. It is found that although layers 5-8 (19.3-150 mb) contain the largest percentage of the total ozone, it is predominantly layers 6-9 (37.3 -300 mb) that make the largest contribution to the temporal variations of total ozone. In accordance with the observations, a strong negative correlation is found between the simulated total ozone and the height of the simulated tropopause. However, changing the height of the tropopause cannot in itself change the total ozone, but rather only its partitioning between the stratosphere and the troposphere. Our analysis clearly shows that it is the ozone convergence and divergence in an atmospheric column, not the photochemical ozone production and destruction, which are responsible for the synoptic increases and decreases of total ozone.
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