Stratospheric Sensitivity to Perturbations in Ozone and Carbon Dioxide: Radiative and Dynamical Response

• Published in: Journal of the atmospheric sciences 1980-10, Vol.37 (10), p.2265-2297
• Main Authors: Fels, S. B., Mahlman, J. D., Schwarzkopf, M. D., Sinclair, R. W.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0022-4928; 1520-0469
• DOI: 10.1175/1520-0469(1980)037<2265:sstpio>2.0.co;2

Stratospheric effects of two perturbations, a uniform 50% reduction in ozone and a uniform doubling of carbon dioxide, are assessed. The primary studies use an annual mean insolation version of the recently developed GFDL 40-level general circulation model (GCM). Supporting auxiliary calculations by using purely radiative models are presented. One of these, in which the thermal sensitivity is computed by assuming that heating by dynamical processes is unaffected by changed composition, gives results that generally agree with those from the GCM. Exceptions to this occur in the ozone reduction experiment at the tropical tropopause and the tropical mesosphere. The predicted response to the ozone reduction is largest at 50 km in the Tropics, where the temperature decreases by 25 K; at the tropical tropopause, the decrease is 5 K. The carbon dioxide increase results in a 10 K decrease at 50 km, decreasing to zero at the tropopause. The temperature change in the CO sub(2) experiment is uniform in latitude.