An Unprecedented Arctic Ozone Depletion Event During Spring 2020 and its Impacts Across Europe

Boyan H. Petkov (1, 2) , Vito Vitale (2) , Piero Di Carlo (1) , Oxana Drofa (3) , Daniele Mastrangelo (3) , Andrew R. D. Smedley (4) , Henri Diémoz (5) , Anna Maria Siani (6) , Ilias Fountoulakis (7) , Ann R. Webb (4) , Alkiviadis Bais (8) , Richard Kift (4) , John Rimmer (4) , Giuseppe Rocco Casale (6) , Georg Hansen (9) , Tove Svendby (9) , Andrea Pazmino (10) , Rolf Werner (11) , Atanas Atanassov (11) , Kamil Láska (12) , Hugo de Backer (13) , Alexander Mangold (13) , Ulf Köhler (14) , Voltaire Velazco (14) , René Stübi (15) , Anna Solomatnikova (16) , Kseniya Pavlova (16) , Piotr Sobolewski (17) , Bjørn Johnsen (18) , Florence Goutail (10) , Oliver Mišaga (19) , Eleonora Aruffo (1) , Ladislav Metelka (20) , Zoltán Tóth (21) , Dénes Fekete (22) , Alexandr Aculinin (23) , Angelo Lupi (2) , Mauro Mazzola (2) , Federico Zardi (2)

1 Ud'A - Università degli studi "G. d'Annunzio" Chieti-Pescara [Chieti-Pescara]
2 ISP - Istituto di Scienze Polari [Bologna]
3 ISAC - Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e del Clima [Bologna]
4 EES - Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences [Manchester]
5 ARPA VDA - Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione dell'Ambiente Valle D'Aosta
6 Dipartimento di Fisica [Roma La Sapienza]
7 IAASARS - Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing [Penteli]
8 Department of Applied and Environmental Physics [Thessaloniki]
9 NILU - Norwegian Institute for Air Research
10 STRATO - LATMOS
11 Space Research and Technology Institute [Sofia]
12 MUNI - Masaryk University [Brno]
13 IRM - Institut Royal Météorologique de Belgique [Bruxelles] - Royal Meteorological Institute
14 MOHp - Meteorologisches Observatorium Hohenpeißenberg
15 Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss
16 MGO - A. I. Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory
17 Institute of Geophysics [Warsaw]
18 Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority
19 SHMU - Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute
20 CHMI - Czech Hydrometeorological Institute
21 H-ION Research, Development and Innovation Ltd.
22 OMSZ - Hungarian Meteorological Service
23 Institute of Applied Physics [Moldavie]

The response of the ozone column across Europe to the extreme 2020 Arctic ozone depletion was examined by analysing ground-based observations at 38 European stations. The ozone decrease at the northernmost site, Ny-Ålesund (79°N) was about 43% with respect to a climatology of more than 30 years. The magnitude of the decrease declined by about 0.7 % deg-1 moving to south to reach nearly 15% at 40°N. In addition, it was found that the variations of the ozone column at each of the selected stations in March-May were similar to those observed at Ny-Ålesund but with a delay increasing to about 20 days at mid-latitudes with a gradient of approximately 0.5 days deg-1. The distributions of reconstructed ozone column anomalies over a sector covering a large European area show decreasing ozone that started from the north at the beginning of April 2020 and spread south. Such behaviour was shown to be similar to that observed after the Arctic ozone depletion in 2011. Stratospheric dynamical patterns in March to May 2011 and during 2020 suggested that the migration of ozone-poor air masses from polar areas to the south after the vortex breakup caused the observed ozone responses. A brief survey of the ozone mass mixing ratios at three stratospheric levels showed the exceptional strength of the 2020 episode. Despite the stronger and longer-lasting Arctic ozone loss in 2020, the analysis in this work indicates a similar ozone response at latitudes below 50°N to both 2011 and 2020 phenomena.

Domains: Ocean, Atmosphere

Boyan H. Petkov, Vito Vitale, Piero Di Carlo, Oxana Drofa, Daniele Mastrangelo, et al.. An Unprecedented Arctic Ozone Depletion Event During Spring 2020 and its Impacts Across Europe. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2023, 128 (3), pp.e2022JD037581. ⟨10.1029/2022JD037581⟩. ⟨insu-03951059⟩