Effect of Future Climate Change on Stratosphere-to-Troposphere-Exchange Driven Ozone in the Northern Hemisphere

Future estimates of atmospheric pollutant concentrations serve as critical information for policy makers to formulate current policy indicators to achieve future targets. Tropospheric burden of O₃ is modulated not only by anthropogenic and natural precursor emissions, but also by the downward transport of O₃ associated with stratosphere to troposphere exchange (STE). Hence changes in the estimates of STE and its contributions are key to understand the nature and intensity of future ground level O₃ concentrations. The difference in simulated O₃ mixing ratios with and without the O₃-Potential Vorticity (PV) parameterization scheme is used to represent the model estimated influence of STE on tropospheric O₃ distributions. Though STE contributions remain constant in Northern hemisphere as a whole, regional differences exist with Europe (EUR) registering increased STE contribution in both spring and winter while Eastern China (ECH) reporting increased contribution in spring in 2050 (RCP8.5) as compared to 2015. Importance of climate change can be deduced from the fact that ECH and EUR recorded increased STE contribution to O₃ in RCP8.5 compared to RCP4.5. Comparison of STE and non-STE meteorological process contributions to O₃ due to climate change revealed that contributions of non-STE processes were highest in summer while STE contributions were highest in winter. EUR reported highest STE contribution while ECH reported highest non-STE contribution. None of the 3 regions show consistent low STE contribution due to future climate change (< 50%) in all seasons indicating the significance of STE to ground level O₃.