Uncertainties in recent tropical stratospheric and tropospheric ozone changes limit the use of observational constraints for assessing future ozone change

A variety of chemical and dynamical processes in the troposphere and stratosphere affect tropical total column ozone (TCO), the net effect of which may cause changes in surface UV radiation and impact human and ecosystem health. We use dynamical linear modeling to estimate changes in tropical TCO and partial column ozone (PCO) in the troposphere and three stratospheric layers to assess agreement between satellite composites and chemistry-climate model simulations from two multi-model experiments (CCMI-1 and CCMI-2022). While both model experiments show tropical TCO increases over 2000–2021, multimodel-mean CCMI-2022 changes (+2.5 DU) agree slightly better with observations (+3.3 DU) than CCMI-1 (+1.6 DU). However, this overall agreement obscures multiple systematic differences in PCO changes between the models and observations across atmospheric layers. For example, since 2000 tropical tropospheric PCO increased significantly in CCMI-2022 (+1.5 DU) but not in CCMI-1 (+0.3 DU), largely explaining the difference in TCO changes. Also, despite nearly identical stratospheric PCO changes, CCMI-2022 changes are slightly more negative than CCMI-1 in the lower stratosphere (by ∼ 0.5 DU) and more positive in the middle/upper stratosphere. Crucially, substantial differences exist between observational PCO changes, particularly in the troposphere and middle/upper stratosphere, and these disagreements limit the ability to evaluate CCM fidelity for past changes. While early and late century trends are correlated across models, suggesting a potential emergent constraint on ozone, the spread in observational trends means they are unable to provide guidance on the credibility of model projections for a given emissions scenario.