UK OZONE MONITORING AND RESEARCH

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UK OZONE MONITORING AND RESEARCH

• Andy Chalmers
• UK Department for Environment Food and Rural
  Affairs
• 7th ORM, 20 May 2008

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Outline

• Stratospheric ozone monitoring
• UV measurements
• ODS monitoring
• Research projects
• Future research needs

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UK monitoring of stratospheric ozone

• UK 4 sites
• N Scotland (Dobson instrument)
• N England (Brewer spectrophotometer)
• S England (Brewer spectrophotometer)
• Wales (SAOZ spectrometer)
• Antarctica British Antarctic Survey (BAS), 2
  sites
• Halley station (Dobson)
• Rothera station (SAOZ)

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UK ozone monitoring data reporting

• Sites in England and Scotland
• Data for best daily average are uploaded to a
  dedicated web page and issued to the World Ozone
  and Ultra Violet Data Centre (WOUDC)
• Monthly data are submitted to the WOUDC for
  inclusion in their archive
• Welsh site
• Data added to the Network for the Detection of
  Atmospheric Climate Change (NDACC), annually

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UV monitoring in the UK

• 2 monitoring sites (Bentham spectrophotometers)
• N England
• S England
• Solar UV index (Broadband)
• Measured at 7 sites by the Radiation Protection
  Division, Health Protection Agency
• Data reporting
• Monitoring sites dedicated website and WOUDC
• UV index sites global solar UV index

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Monitoring ozone depleting substances

• High frequency, real time measurements of the
  principal halocarbons and radiatively active
  trace gases are made at Mace Head, Ireland
• The site is part of the Advanced Global
  Atmosphere Gases Experiment (AGAGE) network
• The data are used to estimate Northern Hemisphere
  baseline concentrations and their European and UK
  emission distributions

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The Upper Troposphere/ Lower Stratosphere (UTLS)
OZONE Programme

• UTLS OZONE, which ended in 2006, was an
  eight-year UK NERC funded thematic programme to
  study ozone in the upper troposphere and lower
  stratosphere
• This research led to an improved understanding of
  chemical composition and structure in the UTLS
  region between 6 and 20km
• In particular, showed that interactions between
  dynamics (meteorology) and atmospheric chemistry
  strongly influence the distribution of ozone and
  other trace gases in the UTLS

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Stratospheric-Climate links with emphasis on the
Upper Troposphere and lower stratosphere
(SCOUT-03)

• 5-year EC integrated project, ending in 2009,
  involving 19 countries
• Co-ordinated by the European Ozone Research
  Co-ordinating Unit (EORCU), at the University of
  Cambridge
• Project aims to predict aspects of the coupled
  chemistry/climate system, including ozone change
  in the lower stratosphere and associated UV and
  climate impact
• Model forecasts have/will contribute to
  assessments of ozone depletion and climate change

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Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC) climate/ozone
modelling

• MOHC has groups working on the modelling of both
  tropospheric and stratospheric ozone and their
  relationship to climate change
• Currently combining its tropospheric and
  stratospheric ozone models, in collaboration with
  the Universities of Cambridge and Leeds, to
  develop a whole atmosphere chemistry model (UKCA,
  Chemistry and Aerosols)
• UKCA will be combined with MOHCs climate and
  ecosystem models, to create a full earth-system
  model

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New research projects started in 2007

• Modelling climate change in the S hemisphere,
  according to predictions of future ozone change
  3-year study, led by University of E Anglia
• Influence of solar variability on atmospheric
  composition (including stratospheric ozone) and
  climate (SOLCI) 5-year project, led by Imperial
  College London

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Future research needs

• Issues identified in the UK report
• Further research on ozone/climate change
  interactions
• Improving the capability of climate models to
  represent stratospheric processes
• Better understanding of the basic physical
  processes involved in ozone-climate links
• Verification of the photolysis rate for the
  ClO dimer