Wednesday, 15 January 2020
Hall B1 (Boston Convention and Exhibition Center)
We studied the influence of Rossby wave breaking (RWB) on ozone variations in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere during 1985-2015 over two U.S. sites (Boulder in Colorado and Wallops Island in Virginia), using the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2) reanalysis data and ozonesonde measurements. We analyzed the occurrence of elevated ozone days and its association with the two types of RWB: anticyclonic wave breaking (AWB) and cyclonic wave breaking (CWB). Our results show that AWB and CWB are associated with higher ozone levels in summer and the ozone enhancement associated with AWB is more significant than with CWB. Together, AWB and CWB account for 20-30% of elevated ozone days.
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