Observations of filamentary structures near the vortex edge in the Arctic winter lower stratosphere

Abstract

Abstract. The CRISTA-NF (Cryogenic Infrared Spectrometers and Telescope for the Atmosphere -New Frontiers) instrument is an airborne infrared limb sounder operated aboard the Russian research aircraft M55-Geophysica. The instrument successfully participated in a large Arctic aircraft campaign within the RECONCILE (Reconciliation of essential process parameters for an enhanced predictability of Arctic stratospheric ozone loss and its climate interactions) project in Kiruna (Sweden) from January to March 2010. This paper concentrates on the measurements taken during one flight of the campaign, which took place on 2 March in the vicinity of the polar vortex. We present two-dimensional cross-sections of derived volume mixing ratios for the trace gases CFC-11, O 3 , and ClONO 2 with an unprecedented vertical resolution of about 500 to 600 m for a large part of the observed altitude range (≈ 6-19 km) and a dense horizontal sampling along flight direction of ≈ 15 km. The trace gas distributions show several structures, for example a part of the polar vortex and a vortex filament, which can be identified by means of O 3 -CFC-11 tracer-tracer correlations.The observations made during this flight are interpreted using the chemistry and transport model CLaMS (Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere). Comparisons of the observations with the model results are used to assess the performance of the model with respect to advection, mixing, and the chemistry in the polar vortex. These comparisons confirm the capability of CLaMS to reproduce even very small-scale structures in the atmosphere, which partly have a vertical extent of only 1 km. Based on the good agreement between simulation and observation, we use artificial (passive) tracers, which represent different air mass origins (e.g. vortex, tropics), to further analyse the CRISTA-NF observations in terms of the composition of air mass origins. These passive tracers clearly illustrate the observation of filamentary structures that include tropical air masses. A characteristic of the Arctic winter 2009/10 was a sudden stratospheric warming in December that led to a split of the polar vortex. The vortex re-established at the end of December. Our passive tracer simulations suggest that large parts of the re-established vortex consisted to about 45 % of high-and mid-latitude air.

Limited angle tomography of mesoscale gravity waves by the infrared limb-sounder GLORIA

“…It is based on JURAS-SIC (Hoffmann, 2006), which was previously used as a forward model for the evaluation of several satellite-and airborne remote-sensing experiments (e.g. Eckermann et al, 2006;Hoffmann et al, 2008;Weigel et al, 2010;Kalicinsky et al, 2013;Ungermann et al, 2016). It contains several approaches of varying computational complexity and accuracy for computing radiances, but in this work we employ the fast-table-based approach based on the emissivity growth approximation (EGA; e.g.…”

Nitric acid trihydrate nucleation and denitrification in the Arctic stratosphere

“…For example, Hösen (2013 investigated in situ tracer observations, while Woiwode (2013) and Kalicinsky et al (2013) used CLaMS to interpret the remote sensing observations of the aircraft instruments MIPAS-ENVISAT and CRISTA-NF, respectively. Further, Wohltmann et al (2013) performed simulations with a focus on the sensitivity of polar chlorine chemistry and ozone loss on heterogeneous reactions, also using a constant NAT nucleation rate.…”

New calibration noise suppression techniques for the GLORIA limb imager

“…The former was primarily designed for the study of transport and mixing processes. CRISTA-NF data from the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (AMMA) and Reconciliation of Essential Process Parameters for an Enhanced Predictability of Arctic Stratospheric Ozone Loss and its Climate Interactions (RECONCILE) measurement campaigns have been used to derive trace gas mixing ratios with unprecedented vertical resolution and along-track sampling Kalicinsky et al, 2013;Weigel et al, 2012). MIPAS-STR, on the other hand, was designed for a chemistry-centred analysis, offering a higher spectral resolution in order to derive more elusive trace gases , at the cost of lower spatial sampling.…”