Daily ozonesondes were launched from 14 North American sites during August 2006, providing the best set of free tropospheric ozone measurements ever gathered across the continent in a single season. The data reveal a distinct upper tropospheric ozone maximum above eastern North America and centered over the southeastern USA. Recurring each year, the location and strength of the ozone maximum is influenced by the summertime upper tropospheric anticyclone that traps convectively lofted ozone, ozone precursors and lightning NOx above the southeastern USA. The North American summer monsoon that flows northward along the Rocky Mountains is embedded within the western side of the anticyclone and also marks the westernmost extent of the ozone maximum. Removing the influence from stratospheric intrusions, median ozone mixing ratios (78 ppbv) in the upper troposphere (>6 km) above Alabama, near the center of the anticyclone, were nearly twice the level above the U.S. west coast. Simulations by an atmospheric chemistry general circulation model indicate lightning NOx emissions led to the production of 25–30 ppbv of ozone at 250 hPa above the southern United States during the study period. On the regional scale the ozone enhancement above the southeastern United States produced a positive all‐sky adjusted radiative forcing up to 0.50 W m−2.

Stratospheric ozone attenuates harmful ultraviolet radiation and protects the Earth's biosphere. Ozone is also of fundamental importance for the chemistry of the lowermost part of the atmosphere, the troposphere. At ground level, ozone is an important by-product of anthropogenic pollution, damaging forests and crops, and negatively affecting human health. Ozone is critical to the chemical and thermal balance of the troposphere because, via the formation of hydroxyl radicals, it controls the capacity of tropospheric air to oxidize and remove other pollutants. Moreover, ozone is an important greenhouse gas, particularly in the upper troposphere. Although photochemistry in the lower troposphere is the major source of tropospheric ozone, the stratosphere-troposphere transport of ozone is important to the overall climatology, budget and long-term trends of tropospheric ozone. Stratospheric intrusion events, however, are still poorly understood. Here we introduce the use of modern windprofiler radars to assist in such transport investigations. By hourly monitoring the radar-derived tropopause height in combination with a series of frequent ozonesonde balloon launches, we find numerous intrusions of ozone from the stratosphere into the troposphere in southeastern Canada. On some occasions, ozone is dispersed at altitudes of two to four kilometres, but on other occasions it reaches the ground, where it can dominate the ozone density variability. We observe rapid changes in radar tropopause height immediately preceding these intrusion events. Such changes therefore serve as a valuable diagnostic for the occurrence of ozone intrusion events. Our studies emphasize the impact that stratospheric ozone can have on tropospheric ozone, and show that windprofiler data can be used to infer the possibility of ozone intrusions, as well as better represent tropopause motions in association with stratosphere-troposphere transport.

An important and under-quantified facet of the risks associated with human-induced climate change emerges through extreme weather. In this paper, we present an initial attempt to quantify recent costs related to extreme weather due to human interference in the climate system, focusing on economic costs arising from droughts and floods in New Zealand during the decade 2007–2017. We calculate these using previously collected information about the damages and losses associated with past floods and droughts, and estimates of the “fraction of attributable risk” that characterizes each event. The estimates we obtain are not comprehensive, and almost certainly represent an underestimate of the full economic costs of climate change, notably chronic costs associated with long-term trends. However, the paper shows the potential for developing a new stream of information that is relevant to a range of stakeholders and research communities, especially those with an interest in the aggregation of the costs of climate change or the identification of specific costs associated with potential liability.

, balloon-borne ozonesondes were released daily at 12 sites in the eastern USA and Canada, producing the largest single set of free tropospheric ozone measurements ever compiled for this region. At the same time, a number of air quality forecast models were run daily as part of a larger field experiment. In this paper, we compare these ozonesonde profiles with predicted ozone profiles from several versions of two of these forecast models, the Environment Canada CHRONOS and AURAMS models. We find that the models show considerable skill at predicting ozone in the planetary boundary layer and immediately above. Individual station biases are variable, but often small. Standard deviations of observation-forecast differences are large, however. Ozone variability in the models is somewhat higher than observed. Most strikingly, none of the model versions is able to reproduce the typical tropospheric ozone profile of increasing mixing ratio with altitude. Results from a sensitivity test suggest that the form of the ozone lateral boundary condition used by all model versions contributes significantly to the large ozone underpredictions in the middle and upper troposphere. The discrepancy could be reduced further by adding a downward flux of ozone from the model lid and by accounting for in situ production of ozone from lightning-generated NO x .

No abstract

The signature of mid‐latitude convection observed by a 46.5 MHz wind‐profiling radar at Aberystwyth, UK (52.4°N, 4.0°W), is demonstrated by way of a case study. A key feature of such radars is their ability to measure the vertical air velocity directly, even under conditions of precipitation. Higher frequency radars, which have more typically been used for such studies, measure the net effect of hydrometeor terminal velocities and the air motion under such conditions. The radar is capable of observing both updrafts and downdrafts, with peak updrafts of the order of 10 m s−1. The signature of convection additionally consists of enhanced values of the radar return spectral width, which cannot be interpreted in terms of turbulence intensity, and reduced reliability of the corresponding radar‐derived horizontal wind components. When convection reaches the uppermost troposphere, the radar return signal power can be anomalously large leading to the radar‐derived tropopause altitude being overestimated. The presence of convection is confirmed by thermal infrared satellite imagery of high‐topped clouds. Use is also made of radiosonde and UHF wind‐profiler data.

Abstract. Twice-daily ozonesondes were launched from Harrow, in southwestern Ontario, Canada, during the BAQSMet (Border Air Quality and Meteorology Study) field campaign in June and July of 2007. A co-located radar windprofiler measured tropopause height continuously. These data, in combination with continuous surface ozone measurements and geo-statistical interpolation of satellite ozone observations, present a consistent picture and indicate that a number of significant ozone enhancements in the troposphere were observed that were the result of stratospheric intrusion events. The combined observations have also been compared with results from two Environment Canada numerical models, the operational weather prediction model GEM (as input to FLEXPART), and a new version of the regional air quality model AURAMS, in order to examine the ability of these models to accurately represent sporadic crosstropopause ozone transport events. The models appear to reproduce intrusion events with some skill, implying that GEM dynamics (which also drive AURAMS) are able to represent such events well. There are important differences in the quantitative comparison, however; in particular, the poor vertical resolution of AURAMS around the tropopause causes it to bring down too much ozone in individual intrusions.Correspondence to: H. He (huixia.he@ec.gc.ca) These campaign results imply that stratospheric intrusions are important to the ozone budget of the mid-latitude troposphere, and appear to be responsible for much of the variability of ozone in the free troposphere. GEM-FLEXPART calculations indicate that stratospheric ozone intrusions contributed significantly to surface ozone on several occasions during the BAQS-Met campaign, and made a moderate but significant contribution to the overall tropospheric ozone budget.

Abstract.A small number of studies have indicated that reductions in the signal strength of clear air returns can be observed at low altitudes in regions of precipitation. This study uses data from the NERC MST radar facility in Aberystwyth (52.4 • N, 4.1 • W) and co-located tipping bucket rain gauge data to determine whether this effect can be observed for all periods where high rainfall rates were observed at the ground. The period selected for examination includes all of the days where a peak rainfall rate of 6 mm h −1 was exceeded in 2001. A statistical examination of VHF radar signal power during periods with and without surface rainfall suggests that the returned power is reduced by the presence of precipitating clouds. The corrected spectral width of the Doppler spectra is also significantly wider during periods of precipitation. The process which causes the decrease in the VHF signal power seems to be associated with a reduction in Fresnel reflection within precipitating clouds. This, in turn, may be due to a reduction of humidity gradients in clouds. UHF wind profiler data is also used to show that there is a relationship between enhanced UHF returns (signifying precipitation) and reduced VHF returns. To clarify the processes and effects observed we examine three case studies which show typical relationships between the VHF signal power and surface rainfall or enhanced UHF signal-to-noise ratios. The effect of precipitation on the signal processing scheme's derivation of signal power and spectral width is explored using individual Doppler spectra.