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Stratospheric intrusion index (SI2) from baseline measurement data

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Abstract

This work introduces an index to identify deep stratospheric intrusions (SI) from measurement data alone, without requiring additional model-based information. This stratospheric intrusion index (SI2) provides a qualitative description of SI event behaviour by summarizing the information from different tracer variations. Moreover, being independent from any model constraint, the SI2 can also represent a valid tool to help in evaluating the capacity of chemistry-transport and chemistry-climate models in simulating deep stratosphere to troposphere transport. The in situ variations of ozone, beryllium-7 and relative humidity were used to calculate the index. The SI2 was applied on 8-year data recorded at the regional GAW station of Mt. Cimone (2165 m asl; 44.10N, 10.70E: Italy). The comparison of the SI2 behaviour with a pre-existing database obtained by also using model products, permitted us to tune a SI2-threshold value capable of identifying SI events efficiently. In good agreement with previous climatological studies across Europe, at Mt. Cimone, the averaged monthly SI frequency obtained by the SI2 analysis showed a clear seasonal cycle with a winter maximum and a spring-summer minimum. These results suggest that the presented methodology is efficient for both identifying SI events and evaluating their annual frequency at the considered baseline measurement site.

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Acknowledgements

This study was carried out within the SHARE project (funded by EV-K2-CNR) and was partly supported by the EU-Network of Excellence ACCENT (goce-ct-2003-505337). The authors would like to thank the Mt. Cimone technical staff (Mr. Pio Giambi and the “Magera team”) for their technical support, as well as the Italian Air Force Meteorological Service and CAMM Mt. Cimone for their valuable collaboration. Finally, we are grateful to the two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNR-ISAC, Via Gobetti 101, 40129, Bologna, Italy

    P. Cristofanelli, F. Calzolari, U. Bonafè, R. Duchi, A. Marinoni, F. Roccato & P. Bonasoni

  2. Department of Chemistry, Environmental Radiochemistry Laboratory, Bologna University, Via Selmi 2, 41100, Bologna, Italy

    L. Tositti

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  1. P. Cristofanelli
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Correspondence to P. Cristofanelli.

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Cristofanelli, P., Calzolari, F., Bonafè, U. et al. Stratospheric intrusion index (SI2) from baseline measurement data. Theor Appl Climatol 97, 317–325 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-008-0073-x

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