Response of tropical stratospheric O₃, NO₂ and NO₃ to the equatorial Quasi-Biennial Oscillation and to temperature as seen from GOMOS/ENVISAT

International audienceThe stellar occultation spectrometer GOMOS (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars) on ESA's Envisat satellite measures vertical profiles O3, NO2 and NO3 with a high long-term stability due to the self-calibrating nature of the technique. More than 6 years of GOMOS data from August 2002 to end 2008 have been analysed to study the inter-annual variation of O3, NO2 and NO3 in the tropics. It is shown that the QBO of the equatorial wind induces variations in the local concentration larger than 10% for O3 and larger than 25% for NO2. Quasi-Biennial Oscillation signals can be found in the evolution of the three constituents up to at least 45 km. We found that NO3 is positively correlated with temperature up to 40 km in the region where it is in chemical equilibrium with O3. Above 40 km, NO3 is no more in equilibrium during night and its concentration is correlated with both O3 and NO2. For O3 and NO2, our results confirm the existence of a transition from a dynamical control of O3 below 28 km with O3 correlated with NO2 and temperature and a chemical/temperature control between 28 and 38 km with O3 anti-correlated with NO2 and temperature. Above 38 km and up to 50 km a regime never described before is found with both O3 and NO2 anti-correlated with temperature. For the NO2/temperature anti-correlation, our proposed explanation is the modulation of the N2O ascent in the upper stratosphere by the QBO and the modulation of the Brewer-Dobson circulation. The oxidation of N2O is the main source of NOy in this altitude region. An enhancement of the ascending motion will cool adiabatically the atmosphere and will increase the amount of N2O concentration available for NOy formation