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The chemically induced ozone loss inside the Arctic vortex during the winter 1994/95 has been quantified by coordinated launches of over 1000 ozonesondes from 35 stations within the Match 94/95 campaign. Trajectory calculations, which allow diabatic heating or cooling, were used to trigger the balloon launches so that the ozone concentrationsin a large number of air parcels are each measured twice a few days apart. The difference in ozone concentration is calculated for each pair and is interpreted as a change caused by chemistry. The data analysis has been carried out for January to March between 370 K and 600 K potential temperature. Ozone loss along these trajectories occurredexclusively during sunlit periods, and the periods of ozone loss coincided with, but slightly lagged, periods where stratospheric temperatures were low enough for polar stratospheric clouds to exist. Two clearly separated periods of ozone loss show up. Ozone loss rates firstpeaked in late January with a maximum value of 53 ppbv per day (1.6 % per day) at 475 K and faster losses higher up. Then, in mid-March ozone loss rates at 475 K reached 34 ppbv per day (1.3 % per day), faster losses were observed lower down and no ozone loss was found above480 K during that period. The ozone loss in hypothetical air parcelswith average diabetic descent rates has been integrated to give an accumulated loss through the winter. The most severe depletion of 2.0 ppmv (60 %) took place in air that was at 515 K on 1 January and at 450 K on 20 March. Vertical integration over the levels from 370 K to 600 K gives a column loss rate, which reached a maximum value of 2.7 Dobson Units per day in mid-March. The accumulated column loss between 1 January and 31 March was found to be 127 DU (~36 %). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that the rate of ozone loss in both polar andmid-latitudes, derived from ozonesonde and satellite data, has almost the same vertical distribution (although opposite sense) to that ofozone laminae abundance. Ozone laminae appear in the lower stratosphere soon after the polar vortex is established in autumn, increase innumber throughout the winter and reach a maximum abundance in late winter or spring. We indicate a possible coupling between mid-winter, sudden stratospheric warmings (when the vortex is weakened or disrupted) and the abundance of ozone laminae using a 23-year record of ozonesonde data from the World Ozone Data Center in Canada combined with monthly-mean January polar temperatures at 30 hPa. Results are presented from an experiment conducted during the winter of 1994/95, in phase II of the Second European Stratospheric And Mid-latitude Experiment (SESAME), in which 93 ozone-enhanced laminae of polar origin observed by ozonesondes at different time and locations are linked by diabatic trajectories, enabling them to be probed twice or more. It is shown that, in general, ozone concentrations inside laminae fall progressively with time, mixing irreversibly with mid-latitude air on time-scales of a few weeks. A particular set of laminae which advected across Europe during mid February 1995 are examined in detail. These laminae were observed almost simultaneously at seven ozonesonde stations,providing information on their spatial scales. The development of these laminae has been modelled using the Contour Advection algorithm of Norton (1994), adding support to the concept that many laminae are extrusions of vortex air. Finally, a photochemical trajectory model is used to show that, if the air in the laminae is chemically activated, it will impact on mid-latitude ozone concentrations. An estimate is made of the potential number of ozone molecules lost each winter via this mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]