Ozone Collar Recovery

Yang E.-S., D. M. Cunnold, M. J. Newchurch, R. J. Salawitch (2005), Change in ozone trends at southern high latitudes, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L12812, doi:10.1029/2004GL022296. Full Text

This publication uses ground-based as well as satellite-based measurements to verify the recovery of the ozone hole at the southern high latitudes (60°-70° S).  Four different data sets are considered in this study (Dobson Spectrophotometer measurements, ozonesonde measurements, SAGE II and HALOE stratospheric ozone profiles, and TOMS measurements between 1979-1984 from Nimbus 7).  All data sets agree that ozone is recovering in the southern high latitudes.

Figure 1. Monthly mean ozone (black filled circles) and ozone equivalent temperature (blue open circles) anomalies for Septembers and Octobers (left) and scatterplots of ozone residuals against temperature residuals at 100 hPa for 1979–1996 (right) for the Vernadsky (65.2°S) and Syowa (69.0°S) Dobson total ozone columns (averaged, first panels), ozonesonde ozone columns from 12–25 km for Syowa (second panels), SAGE/HALOE(/TOMS) stratospheric ozone columns at 60–70°S (third panels), and merged TOMS/SBUV total ozone columns at 60–70°S (fourth panels). The ozone and temperature residuals plotted for 1979–1996 result from subtracting the 1979–1996 trend line from their anomalies. The ozone equivalent temperature anomalies are the temperature anomalies after multiplication by 6.7, 7.2, 6.4, and 4.3 respectively for each data source. They represent the ozone variations attributable to the temperature perturbations.

Temperature dependence of ozone reactions in the southern high latitudes is illustrated in the above figure.  Temperature-ozone correlations are consistent with a direct relationship between September temperatures and the September ozone amounts.