Interannual Variations of Total Ozone and Their Relationship to Variations of Planetary Wave Activity

Interannual variations of total ozone at midlatitudes of the Northern Hemisphere are shown to operate coherently with variations of upwelling planetary wave activity from the troposphere. Variations of upwelling wave activity, which modulate ozone transport and chemical production by the diabatic mean circulation of the stratosphere, account for much of the interannual variance of total ozone, including its systematic decline during the 1980s. Chemical depletion, enhanced by increasing halocarbon levels, accounts for the remainder of the midlatitude trend, consistent with values widely reported by chemical models that do not account for observed changes in upwelling planetary wave activity. Much of the chemical contribution comes from sharply enhanced depletion following the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, during the final years of the satellite record. Incomplete representation of the 3–5-yr recovery toward normal aerosol and ozone after Pinatubo appears to distort the trend inferred from the overall satellite record to values that are unrepresentative of the rest of the record. The impact on ozone of interannual changes of upwelling planetary wave activity is evaluated in calculations with a three-dimensional model of stratospheric dynamics and photochemistry, which reproduce the magnitude and structure of observed interannual variations.