C. Zerefos

Measured Trends in Stratospheric Ozone

Recent findings, based on both ground-based and satellite measurements, have established that there has been an apparent downward trend in the total column amount of ozone over mid-latitude areas of the Northern Hemisphere in all seasons. Measurements of the altitude profile of the change in the ozone concentration have established that decreases are taking place in the lower stratosphere in the region of highest ozone concentration. Analysis of updated ozone records, through March of 1991, including 29 stations in the former Soviet Union, and analysis of independently calibrated satellite data records from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer and Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment instruments confirm many of the findings originally derived from the Dobson record concerning northern midlatitude changes in ozone. The data from many instruments now provide a fairly consistent picture of the change that has occurred in stratospheric ozone levels.

Aviation radiative forcing in 2000: An update on IPCC (1999)

New estimates of the various contributions to the radiative forcing (RF) from aviation are presented, mainly based on results from the TRADEOFF project that update those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 1999). The new estimate of the total RF from aviation for 2000 is approximately the same as that of the IPCC’s estimate for 1992. This is mainly a consequence of the strongly reduced RF from contrails, which compensates the increase due to increased traffic from 1992 to 2000. The RF from other aviationinduced cirrus clouds might be as large as the present estimate of the total RF (without cirrus). However, our present knowledge on these aircraft-induced cirrus clouds is too poor to provide a reliable estimate of the associated RF. Zusammenfassung Neue Abschatzungen der einzelnen Beitrage zum Strahlungsantrieb des Luftverkehrs werden vorgestellt, die im Wesentlichen auf Ergebnissen des TRADEOFF-Projektes beruhen und die die IPCC-Abschatzungen (1999) aktualisieren. Der neue Wert fur den gesamten Strahlungsantrieb des Luftverkehrs im Jahr 2000 ist in etwa gleich gros wie die IPCC-Abschatzung fur das Jahr 1992. Das ist im Wesentlichen eine Folge des stark reduzierten Strahlungsantriebes durch Kondensstreifen, wodurch der Anstieg aufgrund der Zunahme des Verkehrs von 1992 bis 2000 kompensiert wird. Der Antrieb durch andere luftverkehrsinduzierte Wolken konnte ebenso gros sein wie die neue Abschatzung fur den gesamten Strahlungsantrieb (ohne Zirren). Jedoch ist unser heutiges Wissen uber diese luftverkehrsinduzierten Wolken nicht gut genug, um belastbare Aussagen uber den damit verbundenen Strahlungsantrieb zu machen.

Spectral measurements of solar UVB radiation and its relations to total ozone, SO2, and clouds

Spectral solar UV radiation measurements performed at Thessaloniki, Greece (40°N), are presented, and the influence of various atmospheric constituents such as total ozone, cloud cover, and columnar SO2 on these measurements is examined. By comparing UV radiation measurements at days with different total ozone amounts the magnification factor was calculated. Its values range from 1 to 20, depending on the wavelength and the total ozone. A relationship between the UV radiation and the cloud cover was established, being representative only for measurements at 50° solar zenith angle. In addition, the influence of columnar SO2 variations on UV irradiances was also studied. Finally, an attempt was made to compare the relative influence of these parameters on UV radiation, which proved that total ozone is the major factor controlling the solar UVB radiation received at the ground.

Chapter 1 Mediterranean climate variability over the last centuries: A review

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses a necessary task for assessing to which degree the industrial period is unusual against the background of pre-industrial climate variability. It is the reconstruction and interpretation of temporal and spatial patterns of climate in earlier centuries. There are distinct differences in the temporal resolution among the various proxies. Some of the proxy records are annually or even higher resolved and hence record year-by-year patterns of climate in past centuries. Several of the temperature reconstructions reveal that the late twentieth century warmth is unprecedented at hemispheric scales and is explained by anthropogenic, greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing. The chapter discusses the availability and potential of long, homogenized instrumental data, documentary, and natural proxies to reconstruct aspects of past climate at local- to regional-scales within the larger Mediterranean area, which includes climate extremes and the incidence of natural disasters. The chapter describes the role of external forcing, including natural and anthropogenic influences, and natural, internal variability in the coupled ocean–atmosphere system at subcontinental scale.

Effect of aerosols on solar UV irradiances during the Photochemical Activity and Solar Ultraviolet Radiation campaign

Surface UV irradiances were measured at two different sites in Greece during June 1996 under noncloudy conditions. The measured UV irradiances are simulated by a radiative transfer model using measured ozone density and aerosol optical depth profiles. The absolute difference between model and measurements ranges between −5% and +5% with little dependence on wavelength. The temporal and solar zenith angle dependence in the difference between model and measurement suggests that part of this difference may be explained by assumptions made about the aerosol single-scattering albedo and phase function. Simulated spectra including aerosols are compared with calculated spectra excluding aerosols. It is found that for otherwise similar atmospheric conditions the UVB irradiance is reduced with respect to aerosol free conditions by 5% to 35% depending on the aerosol optical depth and single-scattering albedo. For the campaign period, changes in the aerosol loading gave larger variations in the surface UV irradiances than the changes seen in the ozone column.

Record low total ozone during northern winters of 1992 and 1993

The last two winter-spring seasons (DJFM) distinguished themselves by being with the lowest ever total ozone over all three continental size regions between 45°N and 65°N of North America, Europe and Siberia. The total ozone deficiencies for the entire season over all of the above mentioned regions were about 11% and 13% below the long-term normal during the two consecutive years (1991/92 and 1992/93 respectively ). This helped to pull down the cumulative ozone decline since the winter-spring of 1969/70 to be about 14% in the latitude belt of the 45°N–65°N. Frequencies of days with ozone values deviating below the long-term mean by more than 2σ have been ten times higher than their 35-year average. There are evidences deduced from trajectories on potential temperature surfaces that transport of poor in ozone air masses forced in addition by vertical motions, could account for a number of the extreme cases. There is also evidence that cold air, known to have excess ClO content, has moved over the sun lighted latitudes on many occasions, when chemical ozone destruction could have been favored. These ozone deficiencies do not have similar rates of decline and did not reach even close to the extreme low values regularly observed during the Antarctic-spring ozone hole phenomena.

Forecasting peak pollutant levels from meteorological variables

The main objective of this paper is to present analytical models relating maximum pollutant concentrations in urban areas with meteorological and other variables. The analysis is based on measurements from Greater Athens Area and is restricted in only one pollutant of special interest, namely N02. The meteorological variables, used in analytical modeling for forecasting pollution concentrations, cover the most important atmospheric processes favoring pollution episodes. The selection of the variables was based both on extensive correlation analysis and on the existing knowledge from the scientific literature. The evaluation of the developed forecasting models showed that their degree of success is promising. The final model equations derived are simple and they can be used easily for operational forecasts from the air quality management authorities.

Trends in stratospheric and free tropospheric ozone

Current understanding of the long-term ozone trends is described. Of particular concern is an assessment of the quality of the available measurements, both ground and satellite based. Trends in total ozone have been calculated for the ground-based network and the combined data set from the solar backscatter ultraviolet (SBUV) instruments on Nimbus 7 and NOAA 11. At midlatitudes in the northern hemisphere the trends from 1979 to 1994 are significantly negative in all seasons and are larger in winter/spring (up to 7%/decade) than in summer/fall (about 3%/decade). Trends in the southern midlatitudes are also significantly negative in all seasons (3 to 6%/decade), but there is a smaller seasonal variation. In the tropics, trends are slightly negative and at the edge of being significant at the 95% confidence level: these tropical trends are sensitive to the low ozone amounts observed near the end of the record and allowance must also be made for the suspected drift in the satellite calibration. The bulk of the midlatitude loss in the ozone column has taken place at altitudes between 15 and 25 km. There is disagreement on the magnitude of the reduction, with the SAGE I/II record showing trends as large as -20 ± 8%/decade at 16-17 km and the ozonesondes indicating an average trend of -7 ± 3%/decade in the northern hemisphere. (All uncertainties given in this paper are two standard errors or 95% confidence limits unless stated otherwise). Recent ozone measurements are described for both Antarctica and the rest of the globe. The sulphate aerosol resulting from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 and dynamic phenomena seem to have affected ozone levels, particularly at northern midlatitudes and in the Antarctic vortex. However, the record low values observed were partly caused by the long-term trends and the effect on the calculated trends was less than 1.5%/decade.

European summer temperatures since Roman times

The spatial context is criticalwhen assessing present-day climate anomalies, attributing them to potential forcings and making statements regarding their frequency and severity in a long-term perspective. Recent international initiatives have expanded the number of high-quality proxy-records and developed new statistical reconstruction methods. These advances allow more rigorous regional past temperature reconstructions and, in turn, the possibility of evaluating climate models on policy-relevant, spatiotemporal scales. Here we provide a new proxy-based, annually-resolved, spatial reconstruction of the European summer (June-August) temperature fields back to 755 CE based on Bayesian hierarchical modelling (BHM), together with estimates of the European mean temperature variation since 138 BCE based on BHM and composite-plus-scaling (CPS). Our reconstructions compare well with independent instrumental and proxy-based temperature estimates, but suggest a larger amplitude in summer temperature variability than previously reported. Both CPS and BHM reconstructions indicate that the mean 20th century European summer temperature was not significantly different from some earlier centuries, including the 1st, 2nd, 8th and 10th centuries CE. The 1st century (in BHM also the 10th century) may even have been slightly warmer than the 20th century, but the difference is not statistically significant. Comparing each 50 yr period with the 1951-2000 period reveals a similar pattern. Recent summers, however, have been unusually warm in the context of the last two millennia and there are no 30 yr periods in either reconstruction that exceed the mean average European summer temperature of the last 3 decades (1986-2015 CE). A comparison with an ensemble of climate model simulations suggests that the reconstructed European summer temperature variability over the period 850-2000 CE reflects changes in both internal variability and external forcing on multi-decadal time-scales. For pan-European temperatures we find slightly better agreement between the reconstruction and the model simulations with high-end estimates for total solar irradiance. Temperature differences between the medieval period, the recent period and the Little Ice Age are larger in the reconstructions than the simulations. This may indicate inflated variability of the reconstructions, a lack of sensitivity and processes to changes in external forcing on the simulated European climate and/or an underestimation of internal variability on centennial and longer time scales.

Chemical Ozone Loss in the Arctic Winter 1994/95 as Determined by the Match Technique

The chemically induced ozone loss inside the Arctic vortex during the winter 1994/95 has been quantified by coordinated launches of over 1000 ozonesondes from 35 stations within the Match 94/95 campaign. Trajectory calculations, which allow diabatic heating or cooling, were used to trigger the balloon launches so that the ozone concentrations in a large number of air parcels are each measured twice a few days apart. The difference in ozone concentration is calculated for each pair and is interpreted as a change caused by chemistry. The data analysis has been carried out for January to March between 370 K and 600 K potential temperature. Ozone loss along these trajectories occurred exclusively during sunlit periods, and the periods of ozone loss coincided with, but slightly lagged, periods where stratospheric temperatures were low enough for polar stratospheric clouds to exist. Two clearly separated periods of ozone loss show up. Ozone loss rates first peaked in late January with a maximum value of 53 ppbv per day (1.6 % per day) at 475 K and faster losses higher up. Then, in mid-March ozone loss rates at 475 K reached 34 ppbv per day (1.3 % per day), faster losses were observed lower down and no ozone loss was found above 480 K during that period. The ozone loss in hypothetical air parcels with average diabetic descent rates has been integrated to give an accumulated loss through the winter. The most severe depletion of 2.0 ppmv (60 %) took place in air that was at 515 K on 1 January and at 450 K on 20 March. Vertical integration over the levels from 370 K to 600 K gives a column loss rate, which reached a maximum value of 2.7 Dobson Units per day in mid-March. The accumulated column loss between 1 January and 31 March was found to be 127 DU (∼36 %).