DRAGON Cooperation Studies on the middle Atmosphere: Overview of Projects and Results
Sofieva, Viktoria1; Kyrölä, E.1; Liu, Y.2; Liu, C.2; Huang, F.3
1Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, FINLAND; 2Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, CHINA; 3National Satellite Meteorological Center, Beijing, CHINA

The DRAGON cooperation studies on the middle atmosphere and on the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere (UTLS) are based on new satellite data and modern atmospheric models. The aim of the DRAGON-2 EGOMO project was to study the natural variation in the middle atmosphere using large satellite data sets and modeling tools. New climatologies of trace gases (especially ozone) using GOMOS/Envisat and OSIRIS/Odin instruments have been created, and natural cycles and variations have been analyzed. Extreme events like sudden stratospheric warmings and ozone mini-hole formation over the Tibetan Plateau have been addressed in several studies. In our presentation, we overview main scientific results of the DRAGON-2 project.
As a logical continuation of the DRAGON-2 activities, the new DRAGON-3 project is focused on the lower altitudes, the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere (UTLS). Dynamical, chemical and radiative coupling between the stratosphere and troposphere are among the important processes that must be understood for prediction of global trends, including climate change. Special scientific focuses of the project are: (i) dynamical and chemical structures of the extra-tropical UTLS and tropical tropopause layer (ii) multi-scale processes in the UTLS (iii) stratosphere-troposphere exchange (iv) stratospheric ozone variability and updated ozone climatology. A detailed assessment of satellite data with potential improvement of retrievals in UTLS is also anticipated in the project.
In this talk, we present also the first results of the DRAGON-3 project, which include a new climatology of ozone and tropopause height, a study on the observed long-term trend of tropospheric ozone over Beijing, and a preliminary assessment of satellite data quality in the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere.