Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics www.atmos-chem-phys.net 1680-7316 1680-7324 9 22 2009 10.5194/acp-9-8651-2009 http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/8651/2009/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/8651/2009/acp-9-8651-2009.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/8651/2009/acp-9-8651-2009.pdf 8651 8660 2009-11-16 Sensitivity of polar stratospheric ozone loss to uncertainties in chemical reaction kinetics S. R. Kawa stephan.r.kawa@nasa.gov R. S. Stolarski P. A. Newman A. R. Douglass M. Rex D. J. Hofmann M. L. Santee K. Frieler NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Earth Systems Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO, USA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA now at: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Potsdam, Germany The impact and significance of uncertainties in model calculations of stratospheric ozone loss resulting from known uncertainty in chemical kinetics parameters is evaluated in trajectory chemistry simulations for the Antarctic and Arctic polar vortices. The uncertainty in modeled ozone loss is derived from Monte Carlo scenario simulations varying the kinetic (reaction and photolysis rate) parameters within their estimated uncertainty bounds. Simulations of a typical winter/spring Antarctic vortex scenario and Match scenarios in the Arctic produce large uncertainty in ozone loss rates and integrated seasonal loss. The simulations clearly indicate that the dominant source of model uncertainty in polar ozone loss is uncertainty in the Cl₂O₂ photolysis reaction, which arises from uncertainty in laboratory-measured molecular cross sections at atmospherically important wavelengths. This estimated uncertainty in <i>J</i>_Cl₂O₂ from laboratory measurements seriously hinders our ability to model polar ozone loss within useful quantitative error limits. Atmospheric observations, however, suggest that the Cl₂O₂ photolysis uncertainty may be less than that derived from the lab data. 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