The influence of ozone forcing on blocking in the Southern Hemisphere

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (2016)

We investigate the influence of ozone depletion and recovery on tropospheric blocking in the Southern Hemisphere.

Using the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research‐United Kingdom Chemistry and Aerosols chemistry‐climate model, we compare reference runs that include forcing due to greenhouse gases (GHGs) and ozone‐depleting substances to sensitivity simulations in which ozone‐depleting substances are fixed at their 1960 abundances and other sensitivity simulations with GHGs fixed at their 1960 abundances.

Blocking events in the South Atlantic are shown to follow stratospheric positive anomalies in the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) index; this is not the case for South Pacific blocking events.