Summary
Ozone hole over Antarctica exists almost three decades each austral spring. The planetary wave amplification is usually observed on the final stage of the ozone hole development and this feature is generally described by the dynamical model of the sudden stratospheric warming during the stratospheric polar vortex breakdown. The relationship between the late-winter dynamical disturbances in the polar vortex region and the ozone hole state in spring was analyzed statistically. As an indicator of the wave activity in late winter, the quasi-stationary wave (QSW) amplitude in the zonal distribution of the stratosphere temperature in August was used. The late winter zonal anomalies in the stratospheric air temperature were examined by the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis data using the August mean zonal distribution. The ozone hole state is characterized by the monthly mean values of the three parameters: (1) ozone hole area by datasets presented in Southern Hemisphere Winter Bulletin (2007); (2) zonal mean total ozone column by the daily TOMS/NOAA/OMI gridded data and (3) the Amundsen-Scott total ozone data. The correlation coefficients between the QSW temperature amplitude time series and the three mentioned parameters have been calculated. It has been shown that the QSW amplitude in August is highly correlated with September-November total ozone (0.6-0.7). This results indicate that initial conditions of the ozone hole formation are dependent on the polar vortex asymmetry and the 3-month duration of the QSW effects in the seasonal evolution of the ozone hole existence. The possible ozone hole diminution is mainly preconditioned by the QSW amplitude increase in the lower stratosphere, particularly, near the polar vortex edge. The research was partly supported by Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, project 06BF051-12 and Australian Antarctic Science project 737. The research was undertaken in the framework of the ORACLE-O3 IPY project, SCAR ICESTAR Program and the Polar Atmospheric Chemistry at the Tropopause (PACT) SCAR Action Group.