Abstract In-situ observations of various long-lived trace gases in springtime 1985 over Southern France show a remarkable minimum around 27 Km. It is attempted to relate this deviation from the normal vertical distribution to the dynamics of the stratosphere because a major final warming was in progress. The weakened polar vortex was already displaced to Northern Europe, but Southern France was still situated in the westerly current which was slightly disturbed by synoptic scale waves. Backward trajectories indicate that the measured profile is heavily influenced by the windshear in the stratosphere; the origin of the observed air parcels in the middle and the lower stratosphere is extremely different and the parcels of the layer where the minimum of the source gases was measured appear to come out of the elongated polar vortex. Local estimates of displacement heights for such negative deviations from a normal vertical distribution might show a superposition of small short term and larger long term vertical motions in the displaced polar vortex.
The effect of stratospheric dynamics displayed in springtime in-situ observations of source gases at mid-latitudes
Advances in Space Research ; 10 , 10 ; 161-165
1990-01-01
5 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Satellite observations of tropospheric and stratospheric gases
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2001
|Vertical profiles of source gases at tropical latitudes
Elsevier | 1987
|British Library Conference Proceedings | 1997
|Online Contents | 2002