Cool science stuff: I gridded 8-day mean N2O ratios using satellite data in the stratosphere. 🛰️ You can see the polar vortices from depleted N2O (purple) AND splitting polar vortex (wavenumbers 1&2) in the NH winter due to sudden stratospheric warming events in 2008-2010. 1/

I projected 8day mean N2O remaining* in the stratosphere on a constant 14hPa surface over time. We have larger N2O values (green) in the tropics that decrease poleward & lower values (purple) during hemispheric wintertime due to the mesospheric influence of the polar vortex!

*I normalize to the largest N2O values where tropospheric air is upwelled through the tropopause to take 1) boundary conditions and shifts in tropopause height into account and, 2) biases in satellite retrievals in tropics. 3/

Why do I use N2O? It’s a long-lived greenhouse gas lost to radiation and O’D in the stratosphere and has a mesospheric sink due to the polar vortex. I can use the concentrations or ratio remaining (0-1= 0-100%) as metrics to understand mixing and the stratospheric circulation. 4/

I have a schematic of the stratospheric circulation or BDC, where tropospheric air is upwelled in the tropics & transported poleward before sinking in the mid latitudes/poles. We see how air is transported horizontally with newer air having more N2O and older air lost to sink!5/

What is so cool (beyond winter time) is that long-lived molecules don’t just tell us about chemistry and composition of the stratosphere, but are excellent metrics to understand stratospheric mixing and dynamics. The video I posted demonstrates just that! 5/

The satellite data here is used from NASA’s Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS). Thought I would share what I’ve been up to lately. I use a combo of dynamics and chemistry applied to the stratosphere using satellite data. It’s been a fun time! 6/6

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