Ozone and Temperature Structure in a Hurricane

Abstract

For the first time detailed ozone measurements were obtained in a hurricane. An instrumented U-2 airplane was flown into hurricane Ginny on 22 October 1963 off the South Carolina coast. The hurricane core was over-flown at several altitudes and observations of ozone and the standard meteorological variables were obtained from 50 mb (67,000 ft) to 300 mb(30,000 ft). Supplemental temperature data were available below 700 mb from two dropsondes. From the above observations and by including some information about the mean thermal structure in a hurricane similar to Ginny, an ?eye? sounding was constructed from sea level up to 50-mb level. Some nearby environmental data above 200 mb were available, and more distant observations were obtained from the coastal radiosondes and an ozonesonde released at Tallahassee. Analysis of the data suggested that the warm core extended only up to 200 mb, cloud top height. Between 190 and 119 mb(tropopause height), horizontal gradients of ozone and temperature were poorly defined. Above the tropopause and up to 105 mb the region over the eye was warmer and considerably richer ozone. In the layer from 100 to 50 mb, the horizontal gradients again became very weak.