Abstract
Ozone is a key atmospheric component in climate models, reflecting the essential role ozone plays in Earth’s atmosphere. Signs of ozone recovery are beginning to emerge as concentrations of ozone depleting substances decline. Therefore, representation of these changes in climate models plays an important role in furthering understanding of not only how our climate will change, but how future Antarctic ozone will evolve. Examination of ozone in climate models, both in historical and in future projections, can provide insight into important differences between models as well as interesting variability that could have implications for future Antarctic ozone and potentially dynamics. Using three models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), CESM2, UKESM1, and MPI-ESM, we find differences in ozone concentrations, trends, and variability between the three models. This highlights the need for enhanced awareness of the disparities between different climate models. Anomalous Antarctic ozone reductions were identified and investigated further in CESM2. The largest ozone depletion cases within the year-to-year variability were linked to the impact of solar proton events, demonstrating the importance of these events as a significant driver of ozone variability in the historical period and potentially into the future. Potential dynamical implications of the ozone depletion from these solar proton event in CESM2 were also investigated, illuminating avenues for future work to understand the mechanisms through which these events affect atmospheric dynamics.