Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The upper-troposphere and the stratosphere is a region of the atmosphere, located between about 6 and 60km altitude, which plays essential roles for sustaining life on Earth. It hosts the ozone layer, protecting the Earth surface from the dangerous ultra-violet solar radiation; it plays an important role in climate; it influences the day-to-day weather; and it controls a significant part of the tropospheric ozone budget, and in turn, of air quality. This research program proposes to improve our knowledge of this region, with a particular focus on these aspects that are of significance to society. Our research is based on the use and development of two core numerical models, the IGCM-FASTOC and the GEM, a low resolution climate-chemistry model adapted for long-term, global investigations, and Environment Canada's weather prediction model adapted for more detailed, high-resolution studies, respectively. It also involves the use of satellite and balloon sonde observational data. Based on our previous accomplishments, this research program proposes to develop four areas of research: (1) The transport of rich stratospheric air into the troposphere and its effect on the tropospheric ozone budget and air quality; (2) the numerical modelling of the stratosphere, including in particular the effect of solar variability; (3) the use of existing networks of observation of the stratospheric chemical composition (mostly from satellites) to improve the prediction of stratospheric winds through data assimilation, and thereby to improve the weather prediction; and (4) the fundamental aspects of the resolution dependence of stratospheric chemistry, with the aim to provide a correction parameterisation for use by chemistry-resolving models.This program proposes to engage three doctoral students and an undergraduate student per year in this research, and to provide them with a comprehensive, hands-on training in some of the most challenging topics of atmospheric sciences.