ACPD Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ACPD 1680-7375 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acpd-4-1791-2004 Secondary maxima in ozone profiles Lemoine R. 1 Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium 23 03 2004 4 2 1791 1816 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/4/1791/2004/acpd-4-1791-2004.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/4/1791/2004/acpd-4-1791-2004.pdf

Ozone profiles from balloon soundings as well as SAGE II ozone profiles were used to detect anomalous large ozone concentrations of ozone in the lower stratosphere. These secondary ozone maxima are found to be the result of differential advection of ozone-poor and ozone-rich air associated with Rossby wave breaking events. The frequency and intensity of secondary ozone maxima and their geographical distribution is presented. The occurrence and amplitude of ozone secondary maxima is related to ozone trends in the total ozone column and in the lower stratosphere ozone concentration at Uccle and can be used as a measure of the influence of atmospheric circulation on the ozone distribution at mid-latitudes.