Rapid motion of the 1989 Arctic ozone crater as viewed with TOMS data

Abstract

The data from the NIMBUS-7 TOMS instrument were used to study the Arctic ozone layer in late winter and spring, 1989. This paper presents an analysis of TOMS total ozone values, to produce a picture of the morphology of the Arctic stratospheric ozone crater in winter–spring 1989. The Arctic crater formed in late January when the vortex moved off the pole to over Scandinavia. The TOMS data clearly show the Arctic ozone-crater feature over Scandinavia and the western Soviet Union, on February 2, 1989. It later moved south to Baffin Island and then, in March, down over Toronto, and eventually to western Canada, near Edmonton. A similar, unexpected, crater was present in the Antarctic fall, on March 15, 1989. This phenomenon is mainly produced by dynamic uplift, but there may be ozone depletion occurring as well owing to reduced temperatures.