Iodine chemistry in the chemistry-climate model SOCOL-AERv2-iodine

Abstract

Abstract. This paper introduces a new version of the chemistry-climate model SOCOL-AERv2, supplemented by an iodine chemistry module. We conducted three twenty-year-long ensemble experiments to assess the validity of modeled iodine and to quantify the effects of iodine on ozone. The obtained iodine distributions with SOCOL-AERv2-iodine show good agreement with the CAM-chem model simulations and AMAX-DOAS observations. For the present-day atmosphere, the model suggests the strongest influence of iodine in the lower stratosphere with an ozone loss of up to 30 ppbv at low latitudes and up to 100 ppbv at high latitudes. Globally averaged, the model suggests iodine-induced chemistry to result in an ozone column reduction of 3–4 %, maximizing at high latitudes. In the troposphere, iodine chemistry lowers tropospheric ozone concentrations by 5–10 % depending on the geographical location. We also determined the sensitivity of ozone to iodine applying a 2-fold increase of iodine emissions, which reduces the ozone column globally by an additional 1.5–2.5 %. We found that in the lower troposphere, the share of ozone loss induced by iodine originating from inorganic sources is 75 % and 25 % by iodine originating from organic sources, and contributions become similar at about 50 hPa. These results constrain the importance of atmospheric iodine chemistry for present and future conditions, even though uncertainties remain high due to the paucity of observational data of iodine species.