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Erythemal Radiation, Column Ozone, and the North American Monsoon
Author(s) -
Schoeberl M. R.,
Pfister L.,
Wang T.,
Kummer J.,
Dessler A. E.,
Yu W.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1029/2019jd032283
Subject(s) - ozone , microwave limb sounder , atmospheric sciences , tropopause , stratosphere , ozone layer , environmental science , ozone depletion , monsoon , climatology , water vapor , altitude (triangle) , meteorology , geology , geography , geometry , mathematics
Recently, Anderson et al. (2012, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1222978 , 2017, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1619318114 ) and Anderson and Clapp (2018, https://doi.org/10.1039/C7CP08331A ) proposed that summertime convectively injected water vapor over North America could lead to stratospheric ozone depletion through halogenic catalytic reactions. Such ozone loss would reduce the ozone column and increase erythemal daily dose (EDD). Using 10 years of observations over the North American monsoon region from the Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument, we find that the column ozone and EDD has a ~0.8–0.9 spatial correlation with lower stratospheric water vapor measured by the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder. We show that this correlation appears to be due to the elevation of the monsoonal tropopause and associated monsoonal convection. The increase in tropopause altitude reduces the ozone column and increases EDD. We see no apparent evidence of substantial heterogeneous chemical ozone loss in lower stratospheric ozone coincident with the stratospheric monsoonal water vapor enhancement.