Revisiting the Stratosphere Troposphere Exchange of Air Mass and Ozone Based on Reanalyses and Observations

Abstract

Wang and Fu (2021) examined the stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE) of air mass and ozone using ERA5 and MERRA2 reanalysis data and observations for 2007-2010. Their analysis applied a lower stratosphere mass budget approach, with the 380 K isentropic surface serving as the upper boundary of the lowermost stratosphere. This study employs a dynamic isentropic surface fitted to the tropical tropopause, providing an update to the results using the static 380 K boundary. Additionally, we improve the numerical scheme for deriving the mass of the lowermost stratosphere. Under this new framework, the air mass upward flux at the isentropic surface in the tropics increases from 19.3 x109, 19.3x109, and 22.0x109 kg s-1 in Wang and Fu (2021) to 21.9x109, 20.9x109, and 26.3x109 kg s-1 in the present study for ERA5, MERRA2, and observations, respectively. The global ozone fluxes across the fitted isentrope become -347.6, -362.5 and -368.4 Tg yr-1 as compared to -345.7, -359.5 and -335.6 Tg yr-1 at the 380 K level from Wang and Fu (2021) for ERA5, MERRA2 and observations, respectively. The increased role of tropical cirrus clouds near the tropopause is also highlighted under the updated framework in observations. The contribution of cloud heating to tropical air mass flux increases from 2.0% in Wang and Fu (2021) to 8.2% in the present analysis, while for ozone, the corresponding contribution increases from 1.8% to 8.1%. We further show that the improved estimate of the change rate of mass in the lowermost stratosphere have impact on seasonal ozone STE results from chemistry climate models presented in Wang and Fu (2023). These findings provide new insights into the processes governing stratosphere-troposphere exchange.