Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net 1680-7367 1680-7375 7 4 2007 10.5194/acpd-7-9899-2007 http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/9899/2007/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/9899/2007/acpd-7-9899-2007.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/9899/2007/acpd-7-9899-2007.pdf 9899 9924 2007-07-09 Nitrogen compounds and ozone in the stratosphere: comparison of MIPAS satellite data with the Chemistry Climate Model ECHAM5/MESSy1 C. Brühl chb@mpch-mainz.mpg.de B. Steil G. Stiller B. Funke P. Jöckel Max-Planck-Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Granada, Spain The chemistry climate model ECHAM5/MESSy1 (E5/M1) in a setup extending from the surface to 80 km with a vertical resolution of about 600 m near the tropopause with nudged tropospheric meteorology allows a direct comparison with satellite data of chemical species at the same time and location. Here we present results out of a transient 10 years simulation for the period of the Antarctic vortex split in September 2002, where data of MIPAS on the ENVISAT-satellite are available. For the first time this satellite instrument opens the opportunity, to evaluate all stratospheric nitrogen containing species simultaneously with a good global coverage, including the source gas N₂O which allows an estimate for NO_x-production in the stratosphere. We show correlations between simulated and observed species in the altitude region between 10 and 50 hpa for different latitude belts, together with the Probability Density Functions (PDFs) of model results and observations. This is supplemented by global charts on pressure levels showing the satellite data and the simulated data sampled at the same time and location. We demonstrate that the model in most cases captures the partitioning in the nitrogen family, the diurnal cycles and the spatial distribution within experimental uncertainty. There appears to be, however, a problem to reproduce the observed nighttime partitioning between N₂O₅ and NO₂ in the middle stratosphere.