Abstract. Stratospheric water vapour influences the chemical ozone loss in the polar stratosphere via controlling the polar stratospheric cloud formation. The amount of water entering the stratosphere through the tropical tropopause differs substantially between chemistry-climate models (CCM). This is because the present-day models, e.g. CCMs, have difficulties in capturing the whole complexity of processes that control the water transport across the tropopause. As a result there are large differences in the stratospheric water vapour between the models.
5In this study we investigate the sensitivity of simulated Arctic ozone loss to the amount of water, which enters the stratosphere through the tropical tropopause. We used a chemical transport model, FinROSE-CTM, forced by ERA-Interim meteorology.The water vapour concentration in the tropical tropopause was varied between 0.5 and 1.6 times the concentration in ERAInterim, which is similar to the range seen in chemistry climate models. The water vapour changes in the tropical tropopause led to about 1.5 ppm less and 2 ppm more water vapour in the Arctic polar vortex compared to the ERA-Interim, respectively.
10We found that the impact of water vapour changes on ozone loss in the Arctic polar vortex depend on the meteorological conditions. Polar stratospheric clouds form in the cold conditions within the Arctic vortex, and chlorine activation on their surface lead to ozone loss. If the cold conditions persist long enough (e.g. in 2010/11), the chlorine activation is nearly complete.In this case addition of water vapour to the stratosphere increased the formation of ICE clouds, but did not increase the chlorine activation and ozone destruction significantly. In the warm winter 2012/13 the impact of water vapour concentration on ozone 15 loss was small, because the ozone loss was mainly NO x induced. In intermediately cold conditions, e.g. 2013/14, the effect of added water vapour was more prominent, and resulted in 2-7 % more ozone loss than in the colder winters. The results show that the simulated water vapour concentration in the tropical tropopause has a significant impact on the Arctic ozone loss and deserves attention in order to improve future projections of ozone layer recovery.