Future trends in stratosphere-to-troposphere transport in CCMI models

Abstract

Abstract. One of the key questions in the air quality and climate sciences is how will tropospheric ozone concentrations change in the future. This will depend on two factors: changes in stratosphere-to-troposphere transport (STT) and changes in tropospheric chemistry. Here we aim to identify robust changes in STT using simulations from the Chemistry Climate Model Initiative (CCMI) under a common climate change scenario (RCP6.0). We use two idealized stratospheric tracers to isolate changes in transport: stratospheric ozone (O3S), which is exactly like ozone but has no chemical sources in the troposphere, and st80, a passive tracer with fixed volume mixing ratio in the stratosphere. We find a robust increase in the tropospheric columns of these two tracers across the models. In particular, stratospheric ozone in the troposphere is projected to increase 10–16 % by the end of the 21st century in the RCP6.0 scenario. Future STT is enhanced in the subtropics due to the strengthening of the shallow branch of the Brewer-Dobson circulation (BDC) in the lower stratosphere and of the upper part of the Hadley cell in the upper troposphere. The acceleration of the deep branch of the BDC and changes in eddy transport contribute to increase STT at high latitudes. The idealized tracer st80 shows that these STT changes are dominated by greenhouse gas (GHG) increases, while phasing out of ozone depleting substances (ODS) does not lead to robust STT changes. Nevertheless, the increase of O3S concentrations in the troposphere is attributed to GHG only in the subtropics. At middle and high latitudes it is due to stratospheric ozone recovery linked to ODS decline. A higher emission scenario (RCP8.5) produces qualitatively similar but stronger STT trends, with changes in tropospheric column O3S more than three times larger than those in the RCP6.0 scenario by the end of the 21st century.