Assessing the role of planetary and gravity waves on the vertical structure of ozone over central Europe

Planetary and gravity waves play an important role in the dynamics of the atmosphere. They are present in the atmospheric distribution of temperature, wind and ozone content. These waves are detectable also in the vertical profile of ozone and they cause its undulation. One of the structures occurring in the vertical ozone profile is laminae, which are narrow layers of enhanced or depleted ozone concentration in the vertical ozone profile. They are connected with the total amount of ozone in the atmosphere and with the activity of the planetary and the gravity waves. The aim of this paper is quantifying these processes in the central Europe. We compare the occurrence of laminae induced by planetary waves (PL) with the occurrence of these induced by gravity waves (GL). We show that the PL are 3–5 times more frequent than the gravity wave ones. There is a strong annual variation of PL, while GL exhibit only a very weak variation. With the increasing lamina size the share of GL decreases and the share of PL increases. The vertical profile of lamina occurrence is different for small planetary wave and gravity wave laminae. The trend of large lamina occurrence frequency is given by the trend in PL, not by GL.