Upper troposphere and lower stratosphere transport pathways of aerosol and tracers associated with the Asian monsoon circulation (AeroTrac)
Final Report Abstract
The joint Sino-German research project AeroTrac focused on studies of transport pathways of aerosols and tracers associated with the Asian summer monsoon circulation. The Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) is a large-scale atmospheric circulation pattern that extends from the surface into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) during boreal summer in the Northern Hemisphere. The ASM is thought to act as a gateway for atmospheric pollutants into the stratosphere. The project addressed research questions such as how permeable is the ASM transport barrier, where and how efficient are the main export regions of the ASM circulation, what is the impact of volcanic eruptions on the formation of the Asian Tropopause Aerosol Layer (ATAL), and how does the ASM circulation control troposphere-stratosphere exchange. The three main objectives of the project were to compile observational data for ASM and UTLS transport studies, to establish a comprehensive volcanic sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission inventory, and to analyse transport pathways in the UTLS associated with the ASM circulation. Based on an inverse modelling approach combining Lagrangian transport modelling and NASA global satellite observations, the project partners at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) compiled the volcanic SO2 emission inventory. The inventory provides estimates of time- and altituderesolved SO2 injection rates for all major and selected moderate and small volcanic eruptions observed by the AIRS/Aqua satellite instrument from 2002 to 2019. In this project, the inventory was used to initialise Lagrangian transport simulations of volcanic plumes and to investigate the impact of ASM transport pathways on plume dispersion. The project partners also created a data repository providing access to various tropopause data sets derived from meteorological reanalyses. The tropopause data repository proved to be another key element in facilitating studies of transport processes associated with ASM. In particular, it has been used in studies of stratospheric ice cloud formation processes over the ASM and on a global scale. In addition to two data publications, the project partners contributed to six peer-reviewed publications during the course of the project. The AeroTrac project was carried out with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under the 2018 bilateral call for Joint Sino-German Research Projects, which promotes high-quality research projects by supporting the mobility of researchers between China and Germany, promoting the training of researchers, and accelerating the exchange of new scientific knowledge.
Publications
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High-Resolution Source Estimation of Volcanic Sulfur Dioxide Emissions Using Large-Scale Transport Simulations. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 60-73. Springer International Publishing.
Liu, Mingzhao; Huang, Yaopeng; Hoffmann, Lars; Huang, Chunyan; Chen, Pin & Heng, Yi
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Empirical evidence for deep convection being a major source of stratospheric ice clouds over North America. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 21(13), 10457-10475.
Zou, Ling; Hoffmann, Lars; Griessbach, Sabine; Spang, Reinhold & Wang, Lunche
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Reanalysis Tropopause Data Repository
Hoffmann, L. & R. Spang
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A global view on stratospheric ice clouds: assessment of processes related to their occurrence based on satellite observations. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 22(10), 6677-6702.
Zou, Ling; Griessbach, Sabine; Hoffmann, Lars & Spang, Reinhold
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An assessment of tropopause characteristics of the ERA5 and ERA-Interim meteorological reanalyses. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 22(6), 4019-4046.
Hoffmann, Lars & Spang, Reinhold
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Contribution of Asian emissions to upper tropospheric CO over the remote Pacific. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 22(11), 7193-7206.
Smoydzin, Linda & Hoor, Peter
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Improved estimation of volcanic SO 2 injections from satellite retrievals and Lagrangian transport simulations: the 2019 Raikoke eruption. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 22(10), 6787-6809.
Cai, Zhongyin; Griessbach, Sabine & Hoffmann, Lars
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Volcanic SO2 Emission Inventory, Jülich DATA
Hoffmann, L., Cai, Z., Griessbach, S., Wu, X. & Zou, L.
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The influence of the Asian summer monsoon on volcanic aerosol transport in the UTLS region., npj Clim. Atmos. Sci., 6, 11
Wu, X., Qiao, Q., Chen, B., Wang, X., Hoffmann, L., Griessbach, S., Tian, Y. & Wang, Y.
