PLANETARY-WAVES IN TOTAL OZONE AND THEIR RELATION TO ANTARCTIC OZONE DEPLETION

Stanford and Ziemke [1993] have recently demonstrated the versatility of the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) data set in characterizing the behaviour of Rossby-gravity waves. Similar analyses performed here are extended to relate interannual differences in Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude wave activity to the severity of the Antarctic ozone depletion. Total ozone wave powers for wavenumber 1 to 6 have been calculated from TOMS distributions for each day from 1979 to 1992 and a mean measure of Antarctic ozone depletion has been determined for each year. After normalization with respect to stratospheric chlorine loading, interannual differences in the severity of the Antarctic ozone hole are anti-correlated with total wave powers. Furthermore, wintertime mean wave power and polar stratospheric temperatures are well correlated and appear to lag the equatorial Quasi-biennial Oscillation (QBO) by 1 year.