[1] This paper provides a review of stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE), with a focus on processes in the extratropics. It also addresses the relevance of STE for tropospheric chemistry, particularly its influence on the oxidative capacity of the troposphere. After summarizing the current state of knowledge, the objectives of the project Influence of Stratosphere-Troposphere Exchange in a Changing Climate on Atmospheric Transport and Oxidation Capacity (STACCATO), recently funded by the European Union, are outlined. Several papers in this Journal of Geophysical ResearchAtmospheres special section present the results of this project, of which this paper gives an overview. STACCATO developed a new concept of STE in the extratropics, explored the capacities of different types of methods and models to diagnose STE, and identified their various strengths and shortcomings. Extensive measurements were made in central Europe, including the first monitoring over an extended period of time of beryllium-10 ( 10 Be), to provide a suitable database for case studies of stratospheric intrusions and for model validation. Photochemical models were used to examine the impact of STE on tropospheric ozone and the oxidizing capacity of the troposphere. Studies of the present interannual variability of STE and projections into the future were made using reanalysis data and climate models.

Changes in baseline (here understood as representative of continental to hemispheric scales) tropospheric O₃ concentrations that have occurred at northern mid-latitudes over the past six decades are quantified from available measurement records with the goal of providing benchmarks to which retrospective model calculations of the global O₃ distribution can be compared. Eleven data sets (ten ground-based and one airborne) including six European (beginning in the 1950's and before), three North American (beginning in 1984) and two Asian (beginning in 1991) are analyzed. When the full time periods of the data records are considered a consistent picture emerges; O₃ has increased at all sites in all seasons at approximately 1% yr^−1 relative to the site's 2000 yr mixing ratio in each season. For perspective, this rate of increase sustained from 1950 to 2000 corresponds to an approximate doubling. There is little if any evidence for statistically significant differences in average rates of increase among the sites, regardless of varying length of data records. At most sites (most definitively at the European sites) the rate of increase has slowed over the last decade (possibly longer), to the extent that at present O₃ is decreasing at some sites in some seasons, particularly in summer. The average rate of increase before 2000 shows significant seasonal differences (1.08 ± 0.09, 0.89 ± 0.10, 0.85 ± 0.11 and 1.21 ± 0.12% yr^−1 in spring, summer, autumn and winter, respectively, over North America and Europe)

International audienceWe use ozone observations from sondes, regular aircraft, and alpine surface sites in a self-consistent analysis to determine robust changes in the time evolution of ozone over Europe. The data are most coherent since 1998, with similar interannual variability and trends. Ozone has decreased slowly since 1998, with an annual mean trend of −0.15 ppb yr−1 at ∼3 km and the largest decrease in summer. There are some substantial differences between the sondes and other data, particularly in the early 1990s. The alpine and aircraft data show that ozone increased from late 1994 until 1998, but the sonde data do not. Time series of differences in ozone between pairs of locations reveal inconsistencies in various data sets. Differences as small as few ppb for 2-3 years lead to different trends for 1995-2008, when all data sets overlap. Sonde data from Hohenpeissenberg and in situ data from nearby Zugspitze show ozone increased by ∼1 ppb yr−1 during 1978-1989. We construct a mean alpine time series using data for Jungfraujoch, Zugspitze, and Sonnblick. Using Zugspitze data for 1978-1989, and the mean time series since 1990, we find that the ozone increased by 6.5-10 ppb in 1978-1989 and 2.5-4.5 ppb in the 1990s and decreased by 4 ppb in the 2000s in summer with no significant changes in other seasons. It is hard to reconcile all these changes with trends in emissions of ozone precursors, and in ozone in the lowermost stratosphere. We recommend data sets that are suitable for evaluation of model hindcasts