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1998
Conference Paper
Titel
Measurements of reactive nitrogen an nitrous oxide during STREAM III
Abstract
Reactive nitrogen (NOy)plays an important role in stratospheric ozone chemistry. Its constitutents NO and NO2 both catalyze ozone detruction and limit other catalytic ozone depletion cycles as they transform the involved radicals into reservoir species, e.g. chlorine nitrate and nitric acid. While the partitioning within the NOy family may change rapidly, its chemical lifetime is long compared to the time scale of atmospheric transport processes. This also holds for nitrous oxide (N2O), whose photochemical destruciton in the middle stratosphere in the tropics is the principle source of NOy. Therefore, a compact anticorrelation is anticipated and frequently found for the two tracers. However, deviations from this corelation can occur due to processes that redistribute the abundance of reactive nitrogen within the stratosphere, e. g. by particle formation, sedimentation and reevaporation. As such processes alter the balance between ozone destructing radicals, they can have substantial in fluence on stratospheric ozone chemistry.