[1] This study examines the relationship between the extratropical cross-tropopause fluxes of mass and ozone. The adiabatic and diabatic components of the net fluxes are also compared. The rate of change of mass in the lowermost stratosphere and the flux across the 380 K isentropic surface are used to determine the net tropopause mass flux in the framework of a global circulation model. The diabatic mass flux is calculated from the heating rate at the tropopause, and the adiabatic component is determined by the difference of the net and diabatic fluxes. Consistent ozone fields are obtained by driving the Goddard Chemistry and Transport Model with meteorological output of the global circulation model for the same years. The ozone flux is determined by convolving the mass flux and ozone mixing ratio. The results show the following: (1) The seasonal cycle of the ozone mixing ratio is out of phase with the transport cycle leading to a temporal offset of the mass and ozone fluxes; (2) the downward net diabatic flux of mass and ozone occurs primarily at middle latitudes while the adiabatic mass flux is dominated by troposphere-tostratosphere transport at higher latitudes; and (3) the Southern Hemisphere stratospheric vortex is more effective at blocking meridional transport, resulting in a phase difference of mean tropopause ozone mixing ratio in the higher Southern Hemisphere latitudes with respect to the corresponding Northern Hemisphere season and location. Finally, this study suggests that individual pathways of cross-tropopause transport are unlikely to be the result of simultaneous adiabatic and diabatic mechanisms.

The 1998–2016 ozone trends in the lower stratosphere are examined using the Modern‐Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 (MERRA‐2) and related National Aeronautics and Space Administration products. After removing biases resulting from step changes in the MERRA‐2 ozone observations, a discernible negative trend of −1.67 ± 0.54 Dobson units per decade (DU/decade) is found in the 10‐km layer above the tropopause between 20°N and 60°N. A weaker but statistically significant trend of −1.17 ± 0.33 DU/decade exists between 50°S and 20°S. In the Tropics, a positive trend is seen in a 5‐km layer above the tropopause. Analysis of an idealized tracer in a model simulation constrained by MERRA‐2 meteorological fields provides strong evidence that these trends are driven by enhanced isentropic transport between the tropical (20°S–20°N) and extratropical lower stratosphere in the past two decades. This is the first time that a reanalysis data set has been used to detect and attribute trends in lower stratospheric ozone.

Eight years of ozone measurements retrieved from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument and the Microwave Limb Sounder, both on the EOS Aura satellite, have been assimilated into the Goddard Earth Observing System Version 5 (GEOS-5) data assimilation system. This study evaluates this assimilated product, highlighting its potential for science. The impact of observations on the GEOS-5 system is explored by examining the spatial distribution of the observation-minus-forecast statistics. Independent data are used for product validation. The correlation of the lower stratospheric (the tropopause to 50 hPa) ozone column with ozonesondes is 0.99 and the (high) bias is 0.5%, indicating the success of the assimilation in reproducing the ozone variability in that layer. The upper tropospheric (500 hPa to the tropopause) assimilated ozone column is about 10% lower than the ozonesonde column, but the correlation is still high (0.87). The assimilation is shown to realistically capture the sharp cross-tropopause gradient in ozone mixing ratio. Occurrence of transport-driven low ozone laminae in the assimilation system is similar to that obtained from the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS) above the 400 K potential temperature surface, but the assimilation produces fewer laminae than seen by HIRDLS below that surface. Although the assimilation produces about 25% fewer occurrences per day during the 3 years of HIRDLS data, the interannual variability is captured correctly. This data-driven assimilated product is complementary to ozone fields generated from chemistry and transport models. Applications include study of the radiative forcing by ozone and tracer transport near the tropopause.