The Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE) has been measuring climate and ice sheet properties since 2007. Currently, the PROMICE automatic weather station network includes 25 instrumented sites in Greenland. Accurate measurements of the surface and near-surface atmospheric conditions in a changing climate are important for reliable present and future assessment of changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet. Here, we present the PROMICE vision, methodology, and each link in the production chain for obtaining and sharing quality-checked data. In this paper, we mainly focus on the critical components for calculating the surface energy balance and surface mass balance. A user-contributable dynamic web-based database of known data quality issues is associated with the data products at https://github.com/GEUS-Glaciology-and-Climate/PROMICE-AWS-data-issues/ (last access: 7 April 2021). As part of the living data option, the datasets presented and described here are available at https://doi.org/10.22008/promice/data/aws (Fausto et al., 2019).

The Arctic polar vortex exhibited widespread regions of low temperatures during the winter of 2005, resulting in significant ozone depletion by chlorine and bromine species. We show that chemical loss of column ozone (ΔO₃) and the volume of Arctic vortex air cold enough to support the existence of polar stratospheric clouds (V_PSC) both exceed levels found for any other Arctic winter during the past 40 years. Cold conditions and ozone loss in the lowermost Arctic stratosphere (e.g., between potential temperatures of 360 to 400 K) were particularly unusual compared to previous years. Measurements indicate ΔO₃ = 121 ± 20 DU and that ΔO₃ versus V_PSC lies along an extension of the compact, near linear relation observed for previous Arctic winters. The maximum value of V_PSC during five to ten year intervals exhibits a steady, monotonic increase over the past four decades, indicating that the coldest Arctic winters have become significantly colder, and hence are more conducive to ozone depletion by anthropogenic halogens.

We present validation studies of MLS version 2.2 upper tropospheric and stratospheric ozone profiles using ozonesonde and lidar data as well as climatological data. Ozone measurements from over 60 ozonesonde stations worldwide and three lidar stations are compared with coincident MLS data. The MLS ozone stratospheric data between 150 and 3 hPa agree well with ozonesonde measurements, within 8% for the global average. MLS values at 215 hPa are biased high compared to ozonesondes by ∼20% at middle to high latitude, although there is a lot of variability in this altitude region. Comparisons between MLS and ground‐based lidar measurements from Mauna Loa, Hawaii, from the Table Mountain Facility, California, and from the Observatoire de Haute‐Provence, France, give very good agreement, within ∼5%, for the stratospheric values. The comparisons between MLS and the Table Mountain Facility tropospheric ozone lidar show that MLS data are biased high by ∼30% at 215 hPa, consistent with that indicated by the ozonesonde data. We obtain better global average agreement between MLS and ozonesonde partial column values down to 215 hPa, although the average MLS values at low to middle latitudes are higher than the ozonesonde values by up to a few percent. MLS v2.2 ozone data agree better than the MLS v1.5 data with ozonesonde and lidar measurements. MLS tropical data show the wave one longitudinal pattern in the upper troposphere, with similarities to the average distribution from ozonesondes. High upper tropospheric ozone values are also observed by MLS in the tropical Pacific from June to November.

The mass of the Greenland ice sheet is declining as mass gain from snow accumulation is exceeded by mass loss from surface meltwater runoff, marine-terminating glacier calving and submarine melting, and basal melting. Here we use the input–output (IO) method to estimate mass change from 1840 through next week. Surface mass balance (SMB) gains and losses come from a semi-empirical SMB model from 1840 through 1985 and three regional climate models (RCMs; HIRHAM/HARMONIE, Modèle Atmosphérique Régional – MAR, and RACMO – Regional Atmospheric Climate MOdel) from 1986 through next week. Additional non-SMB losses come from a marine-terminating glacier ice discharge product and a basal mass balance model. From these products we provide an annual estimate of Greenland ice sheet mass balance from 1840 through 1985 and a daily estimate at sector and region scale from 1986 through next week. This product updates daily and is the first IO product to include the basal mass balance which is a source of an additional ∼24 Gt yr⁻¹ of mass loss. Our results demonstrate an accelerating ice-sheet-scale mass loss and general agreement (coefficient of determination, r², ranges from 0.62 to 0.94) among six other products, including gravitational, volume, and other IO mass balance estimates. Results from this study are available at https://doi.org/10.22008/FK2/OHI23Z (Mankoff et al., 2021).

The EU CANDIDOZ project investigated the chemical and dynamical influences on decadal ozone trends focusing on the Northern Hemisphere. High quality long-term ozone data sets, satellite-based as well as ground-based, and the long-term meteorological reanalyses from ECMWF and NCEP are used together with advanced multiple regression models and atmospheric models to assess the relative roles of chemistry and transport in stratospheric ozone changes. This overall synthesis of the individual analyses in CANDIDOZ shows clearly one common feature in the NH mid latitudes and in the Arctic: an almost monotonic negative trend from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s followed by an increase. In most trend studies, the Equivalent Effective Stratospheric Chlorine (EESC) which peaked in 1997 as a consequence of the Montreal Protocol was observed to describe ozone loss better than a simple linear trend. Furthermore, all individual analyses point to changes in dynamical drivers, such as the residual circulation (responsible for the meridional transport of ozone into middle and high latitudes) playing a key role in the observed turnaround. The changes in ozone transport are associated with variations in polar chemical ozone loss via heterogeneous ozone chemistry on PSCs (polar stratospheric clouds). Synoptic scale processes as represented by the new equivalent latitude proxy, by conventional tropopause altitude or by 250 hPa geopotential height have also been successfully linked to the recent ozone increases in the lowermost stratosphere. These show significant regional variation with a large impact over Europe and seem to be linked to changes in tropospheric climate patterns such as the North Atlantic Oscillation. Some influence in recent ozone increases was also attributed to the rise in solar cycle number 23. Changes from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s were found in a number of characteristics of the Arctic vortex. However, only one trend was found when more recent years are also considered, namely the tendency for cold winters to become colder.