Abstract. We present data from winter 2015–2016, which were measured during the POLSTRACC (The Polar Stratosphere in a Changing Climate) aircraft campaign between December 2015 and March 2016 in the Arctic upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). The focus of this work is on the role of transport and mixing between aged and potentially chemically processed air masses from the stratosphere which have midlatitude and low-latitude air mass fractions with small transit times originating at the tropical lower stratosphere. By combining measurements of CO, N2O and SF6 we estimate the evolution of the relative contributions of transport and mixing to the UTLS composition over the course of the winter. We find an increasing influence of aged stratospheric air partly from the vortex as indicated by decreasing N2O and SF6 values over the course of the winter in the extratropical lower and lowermost stratosphere between Θ=360 K and Θ=410 K over the North Atlantic and the European Arctic. Surprisingly we also found a mean increase in CO of (3.00 ± 1.64) ppbV from January to March relative to N2O in the lower stratosphere. We show that this increase in CO is consistent with an increased mixing of tropospheric air as part of the fast transport mechanism in the lower stratosphere surf zone. The analysed air masses were partly affected by air masses which originated at the tropical tropopause and were quasi-horizontally mixed into higher latitudes. This increase in the tropospheric air fraction partly compensates for ageing of the UTLS due to the diabatic descent of air masses from the vortex by horizontally mixed, tropospheric-influenced air masses. This is consistent with simulated age spectra from the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere (CLaMS), which show a respective fractional increase in tropospheric air with transit times under 6 months and a simultaneous increase in aged air from upper stratospheric and vortex regions with transit times longer than 2 years. We thus conclude that the lowermost stratosphere in winter 2015–2016 was affected by aged air from the upper stratosphere and vortex region. These air masses were significantly affected by increased mixing from the lower latitudes, which led to a simultaneous increase in the fraction of young air in the lowermost Arctic stratosphere by 6 % from January to March 2016.

The Polar Stratosphere in a Changing Climate (POLSTRACC) mission employed the German High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft (HALO). The payload comprised an innovative combination of remote sensing and in situ instruments. The in situ instruments provided high-resolution observations of cirrus and polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs), a large number of reactive and long-lived trace gases, and temperature at the aircraft level. Information above and underneath the aircraft level was achieved by remote sensing instruments as well as dropsondes. The mission took place from 8 December 2015 to 18 March 2016, covering the extremely cold late December to early February period and the time around the major warming in the beginning of March. In 18 scientific deployments, 156 flight hours were conducted, covering latitudes from 25° to 87°N and maximum altitudes of almost 15 km, and reaching potential temperature levels of up to 410 K. Highlights of results include 1) new aspects of transport and mixing in the Arctic upper troposphere–lower stratosphere (UTLS), 2) detailed analyses of special dynamical features such as tropopause folds, 3) observations of extended PSCs reaching sometimes down to HALO flight levels at 13–14 km, 4) observations of particulate NOy and vertical redistribution of gas-phase NOy in the lowermost stratosphere (LMS), 5) significant chlorine activation and deactivation in the LMS along with halogen source gas observations, and 6) the partitioning and budgets of reactive chlorine and bromine along with a detailed study of the efficiency of ClOx/BrOx ozone loss cycle. Finally, we quantify—based on our results—the ozone loss in the 2015/16 winter and address the question of how extraordinary this Arctic winter was.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Activated chlorine compounds in the polar winter stratosphere drive catalytic cycles that process ozone and methane, whose abundances are highly relevant to the evolution of global climate. The present work introduces a novel dataset of in situ measurements of relevant chlorine species in the Arctic lowermost stratosphere from the aircraft mission POLSTRACC/GWLCYCLE/SALSA during winter 2015/2016. The major stages of chemical evolution of the lower polar vortex are presented in a consistent series of high resolution mass spectrometric observations of HCl and ClONO<sub>2</sub>. Simultaneous measurements of CFC-12 are used to derive total inorganic chlorine (Cl<sub><i>y</i></sub>) and active chlorine (ClO<sub><i>x</i></sub>). The new data highlight an altitude dependent shift in the pathway of chlorine deactivation through the recovery of the reservoir species from ClONO<sub>2</sub> to HCl in the lowermost vortex below the 380 K isentropic surface. Further, we show that the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere (CLaMS) is generally able to reproduce the chemical evolution of the lower polar vortex chlorine budget, except from a bias in HCl concentrations. The model is used to relate local measurements to the vortex-wide evolution. The results are aimed at fostering our understanding of the climate impact of chlorine chemistry, providing new observational data to complement satellite data and assess model performance in the climate sensitive upper troposphere and lower stratosphere region.</p>

Activated chlorine compounds in the polar winter stratosphere drive catalytic cycles that deplete ozone and methane, whose abundances are highly relevant to the evolution of global climate. The present work introduces a novel dataset of in situ measurements of relevant chlorine species in the lowermost Arctic stratosphere from the aircraft mission POLSTRACC-GW-LCYCLE-SALSA during winter 2015/2016. The major stages of chemical evolution of the lower polar vortex are presented in a consistent series of high-resolution mass spectrometric observations of HCl and ClONO 2 . Simultaneous measurements of CFC-12 are used to derive total inorganic chlorine (Cl y ) and active chlorine (ClO x ). The new data highlight an altitude dependence of the pathway for chlorine deactivation in the lowermost vortex with HCl dominating below the 380 K isentropic surface and ClONO 2 prevailing above. Further, we show that the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere (CLaMS) is generally able to reproduce the chemical evolution of the lower polar vortex chlorine budget, except for a bias in HCl concentrations. The model is used to relate local measurements to the vortex-wide evolution. The results are aimed at fostering our understanding of the climate impact of chlorine chemistry, providing new observational data to complement satellite data and assess model performance in the climatesensitive upper troposphere and lower stratosphere region.