Quantifying the tropospheric ozone radiative effect and its temporal evolution in the satellite era

Using state-of-the-art satellite ozone profile products, and a chemical transport model, we provide an updated estimate of the tropospheric ozone radiative effect (TOinline-formula₃RE) and observational constraint on its variability over the decade 2008–2017. Previous studies have shown the short-term (i.e. a few years) globally weighted average TOinline-formula₃RE to be 1.17 inline-formula± 0.03 W minline-formula⁻². However, from our analysis, using decadal (2008–2017) ozone profile datasets from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer, average TOinline-formula₃RE ranges between 1.21 and 1.26 W minline-formula⁻². Over this decade, the modelled and observational TOinline-formula₃RE linear trends show a negligible change (e.g.  inline-formula± 0.1 % yrinline-formula⁻¹). Two model sensitivity experiments fixing emissions and meteorology to 1 year (i.e. start year – 2008) show that temporal changes in ozone precursor emissions (increasing contribution) and meteorological factors (decreasing contribution) have counteracting tendencies, leading to a negligible globally weighted average TOinline-formula₃RE trend.