Linking transport processes and UT/LS budgets with Laminar identification (LID): Insights from tropical and mid-Latitude field campaigns

We have used the laminar identification technique (developed by Teitelbaum et al, 1994 and Pierce and Grant, 1998), to isolate wave-related transport in UT/LS (upper troposphere and lower stratosphere) ozone and P-T-U soundings taken in two types of sounding networks. First, daily soundings in regional campaign intensives (eg in IONS, INTEX Ozonesonde Network Study; Thompson et al., 2007; 2008] are used to evaluate short-term variability in UT/LS ozone layers due to convection and stratospheric-tropospheric exchange. The empirical ozone budgets for summertime North America, deduced from LID, refined with trajectories, satellite data and tracers from aircraft measurements, are compared to chemical-transport models in mid-latitude analysis. In the second case, for longer-term networks (e.g. SHADOZ; Thompson et al., 2004), with weekly launches at 12 stations, gravity waves identified by LID dominate in the UT/LS, with a frequency approaching 100% in near equatorial Pacific and Indian Ocean sites at certain times of year. We present LID analyses of Costa Rican and Panama soundings during the 2007 TC4 (Tropical Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling) where satellite and aircraft data confirm the role of convection in initiating gravity waves. The TC4 ozone budgets are similar to the wave-based climatology of South American SHADOZ stations since 1999.