CO2 and O3 vertical distributions over the Showa Station, Antarctica before and during the ozone hole formation in 2014, measured by balloon-borne CO2 and O3 instruments

Abstract:

The vertical and horizontal distributions of CO₂ mixing ratio in the troposphere and stratosphere are considered to include the information on the source and sink of CO₂, as well as transport of air masses in the atmosphere. However, only a limited number of vertical profiles for CO2 mixing ratio, which were typically obtained based on aircraft-based observations, are available. We have originally developed a new balloon-born instrument (CO2 sonde) to measure CO2 vertical profile from surface up to about 10 km in altitude.

The ozone hole formation is typically observed in the early spring over Antarctica. To our knowledge, no study focusing on the change in the CO2 vertical profile before and after the ozone hole formation has been reported. In the present study, we launched four CO2 sondes at Syowa Station, Antarctica between June and October in 2014 to obtain CO2 vertical distributions before and during the ozone hole formation. Observations of ozone vertical distributions using traditional ozone sondes were also conducted on the same days. In the presentation, we will report the relationships between the vertical distributions of CO2 and ozone.