Atmosphere Ocean Science Colloquium

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Protection without poison: why tropical ozone maximizes in the interior of the atmosphere

Speaker: Aaron Match, NYU

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Wednesday, September 25, 2024, 3:30 p.m.

Synopsis:

The number density of ozone maximizes around 26 km in the tropics, protecting life from harmful UV without poisoning it at the surface. Textbooks have explained this basic fact by emphasizing, to varying degrees, the structural role of photolytic sources, photolytic sinks, catalytic sinks, and transport. Yet, textbook explanations have not gone so far as to provide what we seek: a minimal quantitative theory for the interior maximum of ozone in terms of its dominant sources and sinks. Our new theory reveals that the stratospheric maximum of tropical ozone occurs at the transition from a catalytically-damped regime aloft to a transport-damped regime below. We will present simple analytical solutions and examine the sensitivity to perturbations relevant to global warming and ozone-depleting substances.