Speaker: Dr. Gabriel Chiodo
Title: The overlooked role of stratospheric ozone in forcing Northern Hemispheric surface climate
Our understanding of the role of the ozone and more generally stratospheric composition in the climate system is still limited. This particularly concerns Arctic ozone, as its interactions with the large-scale atmospheric circulation and climate have been largely overlooked. Here, I provide multiple lines of evidence concerning the importance of Arctic ozone and its coupling with climate on a broad range of time-scales, encompassing short-term (i.e. intraseasonal) variability to long-term climate change. First, I will show results on the connection between Arctic ozone and surface climate on interannual time-scales, highlighting the contribution of springtime ozone depletion to surface climate anomalies, and the role of Arctic ozone extremes in modulating the timing of the polar vortex breakdown. Then, I will discuss the effects of long-term ozone recovery on the Arctic stratosphere and stratosphere-troposphere coupling; I will show how ozone (super-)recovery significantly offsets the effects of GHGs on the Northern Hemispheric polar vortex, which has implications for regional surface projections. Taken together, there is emerging evidence pointing at a large and previously unrecognized influence of Arctic ozone on Northern Hemispheric (NH) surface climate, and my talk will explore the dynamical and radiative mechanisms behind this connection.
Dr. Gabriel Chiodo is a tenure-track Research Scientist in climate science and group leader at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. His research focuses on the connections between chemistry and climate, stratosphere-troposphere coupling and radiative forcing.
