Positive trends in Southern Hemisphere carbonyl sulfide

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TitlePositive trends in Southern Hemisphere carbonyl sulfideAbstractTransport of carbonyl sulfide (OCS) from the troposphere to the stratosphere contributes sulfur to the stratospheric aerosol layer, which reflects incoming short-wave solar radiation, cooling the climate system. Previous analyses of OCS observations have shown no significant trend, suggesting that OCS is unlikely to be a major contributor to the reported increases in stratospheric aerosol loading and indicating a balanced OCS budget. Here we present analyses of ground-based Fourier transform spectrometer measurements of OCS at three Southern Hemisphere sites spanning 34.45°S to 77.80°S. At all three sites statistically significant positive trends are seen from 2001 to 2014 with an observed overall trend in total column OCS at Wollongong of 0.73 ± 0.03%/yr, at Lauder of 0.43 ± 0.02%/yr, and at Arrival Heights of 0.45 ± 0.05%/yr. These observed trends in OCS imply that the OCS budget is not balanced and could contribute to constraints on current estimates of sources and sinks. Copyright 2015. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank David Griffith, Clare Murphy, and Voltair Velazco at the School of Chemistry at the University of Wollongong and John Robinson at the NIWA research center at Lauder, New Zealand, Antarctica New Zealand, and science technicians at Scott Base for their tireless efforts to maintain FTS instrumentation and to conduct FTS measurements of OCS. Stefanie Kremser would like to thank the Royal Society of New Zealand for supporting this research through the Marsden Fast-Start Fund. The FTS measurements at Lauder and Arrival Heights are conducted as part of NIWA's government-funded, core research. The measurement program and NDACC site at Wollongong has been supported by the Australian Research Council for many years, most recent by grants DP110101948 and LE0668470. Funding by the EU project StratoClim is acknowledged. This work has partially been supported by the German Research council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), grant PA 1714/6-1. Requests for data used in this paper can be directed to Stefanie Kremser (stefanie@bodekerscientific.com).

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1st AuthorKremser, S.AuthorKremser, S.Jones, N.Palm, M.Lejeune, B.Wang, Y.Smale, D.Deutscher, N.Year2015JournalGeophysical Research LettersVolume42Number21Pages9473-9480DOI10.1002/2015GL065879URLhttps://www.scopus.com/inward/recor.....2cf29e0ea8913caec36d8bd8fKeywordsAerosolsAtmospheric movementsFourier transform infrared spectroscopySulfurSulfur compounds, Carbonyl sulfideClimate systemFourier transform spectrometersGround basedMeasurements ofSouthern HemisphereStratospheric aerosolstrend, Budget control, aerosolcarbonyl compoundcoolingpollutant transportshortwave radiationSouthern Hemispherespatiotemporal analysisstratospheresulfidetrend analysistroposphere, AntarcticaArrival HeightsAustraliaEast AntarcticaLauderNew South WalesNew ZealandOtagoSouth IslandWollongong, rank5Author Keywordscarbonyl sulfideSouthern Hemispheresulfur budgettrendProgrammeK085 - Remote sensing and sampling of atmospheric trace gases and greenhouse gases

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TypeArticleCitationKremser, S., Jones, N., Palm, M., Lejeune, B., Wang, Y., Smale, D. and Deutscher, N. (2015). Positive trends in Southern Hemisphere carbonyl sulfide. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(21): 9473-9480