Ozone-rich transients in the upper equatorial Atlantic troposphere

K. Suhre (), J.-P. Cammas, P. Nédelec, R. Rosset, A. Marenco and H. G. J. Smit
Additional contact information
K. Suhre: Laboratoire d'Aérologie (UMR CNRS/UPS 5560)
J.-P. Cammas: Laboratoire d'Aérologie (UMR CNRS/UPS 5560)
P. Nédelec: Laboratoire d'Aérologie (UMR CNRS/UPS 5560)
R. Rosset: Laboratoire d'Aérologie (UMR CNRS/UPS 5560)
A. Marenco: Laboratoire d'Aérologie (UMR CNRS/UPS 5560)
H. G. J. Smit: Research Centre Jülich, Institute for Chemistry of the Polluted Atmosphere (ICG-2)

Nature, 1997, vol. 388, issue 6643, 661-663

Abstract: Abstract High concentrations of ozone are found in the Earth's stratosphere, but strong stratification suppresses efficient exchange of this ozone-rich air with the underlying troposphere. Upward transport of tropospheric trace constituents occurs mainly through equatorial deep convective systems. In contrast, significant downward transport of ozone-rich stratospheric air is thought to take place only outside the tropics by exchange processes in upper-level fronts associated with strong distortions of the tropopause1. Ozone within the tropical troposphere is assumed to originate predominantly from ground-based emissions of ozone precursors, particularly from biomass burning2, rather than from a stratospheric source. Recent measurements of ozone in the upper troposphere in convective regions over the Pacific Ocean3 indeed reveal near-zero concentrations. Here we present sharply contrasting observations: ozone-rich (100–500 parts per billion by volume) transients were frequently encountered by specially equipped commercial aircraft at a cruising altitude of 10–12 km (in the upper troposphere) in the vicinity of strong convective activity over the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. This strongly suggests that the input of stratospheric ozone into the troposphere can take place in the tropics. We suggest that this transport occurs either by direct downward movement of air masses or by quasi-isentropic transport from the extratropical stratosphere.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/41749 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:388:y:1997:i:6643:d:10.1038_41749

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/41749

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().