The Diurnal Variation of Minor Constituents in the Stratosphere and Its Effect on the Ozone Concentration

Abstract

The vertical distribution of ozone at the equator was studied by means of a diurnal integration of the photochemical equations with the sum of the nitrogen oxides specified as a function of height and ozone assumed to be in photochemical equilibrium. The results were compared with an approximate method which employed 24 h mean dissociation rates and found to be larger by up to 25% above 25 km. This difference is due to important nonlinearities in the diurnally averaged photochemical production and loss terms. An approximate method is developed which yields ozone concentrations in good agreement with the diurnal integration but which requires much less computation time. The calculated ozone concentration was found to exceed observed values by significant amounts and some reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.