EFFECTS OF INITIAL ACTIVE CHLORINE CONCENTRATIONS ON THE ANTARCTIC OZONE SPRING DEPLETION

Several one-dimensional model experiments have been conducted in order to simulate the observed downward trend of total ozone and the shape of ozone profiles in the Antarctic during the austral spring. The results underline the fact that the O3 depletion is quadratically sensitive to the amount of active chlorine, which we have expressed as the fraction (F) of Clx that is in active form by polar sunrise. For F = 1, this result is largely independent of the occurrence of heterogenous chemistry after polar sunrise since all of the processing has already occurred. The main O3 loss is due to formation and photolysis of Cl2O2, the mechanism first suggested by Molina et al. [1987]. -from Authors