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A stratospheric excess of CO 2 ‐due to tropical deep convection?
Author(s) -
Harnisch J.,
Bischof W.,
Borchers R.,
Fabian P.,
Maiss M.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/97gl03398
Subject(s) - stratosphere , atmospheric sciences , convection , environmental science , anomaly (physics) , mixing ratio , deep convection , atmosphere (unit) , climatology , meteorology , geology , physics , condensed matter physics
The ‘age’ of stratospheric air is a measure that characterizes the time scales of stratospheric transport. In this work we present and compare age‐values as determined from measurements of CO 2 and SF 6 on air‐samples obtained between 1987 and 1995 on six flights of our balloon‐borne cryo‐sampler. In the middle stratosphere for five out of six flights we find age‐values that are up to three years lower for CO 2 than for SF 6 . This CO 2 ‐age anomaly corresponds to an excess of 4–5 ppm CO 2 . Evidence is presented that this excess‐CO 2 originates from rapid convective transport of near surface air. Additionally, we show that globally no compact relationship exists between the age of air and mixing‐ratios of N 2 O.