Atmospheric Transport

Coarse particles of aerodynamic diameter between 2.5 and 10 | xm (PM C ) are produced by a range of natural (windblown dust and sea sprays) and anthropogenic processes (non-exhaust vehicle emissions, industrial, agriculture, construction and quarrying activities). Although current ambient air quality regulations focus on PM2.5 and PM10, coarse particles are of interest from a public health point of view as they have been associated with certain mortality and morbidity outcomes. In this paper, an analysis of coarse particle levels in three European capitals (London, Madrid and Athens) is presented and discussed. For all three cities we analysed data from both traffic and urban background monitoring sites. The results showed that the levels of coarse particles present significant seasonal, weekly and daily variability. Their wind driven and non-wind driven resuspension as well as their roadside increment due to traffic were estimated. Both the local meteorological conditions and the air mass history indicating long-range atmospheric transport of particles of natural origin are significant parameters that influence the levels of coarse particles in the three cities especially during episodic events.

Climate variability impacts CH4 wetland sources as changes in flux density per unit area and via expansion or contraction of wetland areas in response to surface hydrological processes. This paper is a first attempt to isolate the role of varying wetland area on the seasonal and interannual variability of CH4 wetland emissions over the past decade. Wetland area extent at monthly intervals was provided over the period 1993–2000 by a suite of satellite observations from multiple sensors. The regionally variable fraction of wetland area was optimized using satellite observations of flooded area as a first estimate and further adjusted to match the seasonal cycle of CH4 fluxes retrieved from a global atmospheric inversion. Wetland flux densities of CH4 were calculated by coupling the ORCHIDEE global vegetation model with a process‐based wetland CH4 emission model, calibrated by optimizing its parameters at the site level against representative CH4 flux time series. For boreal bogs north...

Climate variability impacts CH4 wetland sources as changes in flux density per unit area and via expansion or contraction of wetland areas in response to surface hydrological processes. This paper is a first attempt to isolate the role of varying wetland area on the seasonal and interannual variability of CH4 wetland emissions over the past decade. Wetland area extent at monthly intervals was provided over the period 1993–2000 by a suite of satellite observations from multiple sensors. The regionally variable fraction of wetland area was optimized using satellite observations of flooded area as a first estimate and further adjusted to match the seasonal cycle of CH4 fluxes retrieved from a global atmospheric inversion. Wetland flux densities of CH4 were calculated by coupling the ORCHIDEE global vegetation model with a process‐based wetland CH4 emission model, calibrated by optimizing its parameters at the site level against representative CH4 flux time series. For boreal bogs north...

This study reveals that open-field biomass burning can be an important source of various semivolatile organic chemicals (SVOCs) to the atmosphere including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and a range of pesticides. Emission factors (EFs) for 39 individual SVOCs are determined from burning of various fuel types that are common in tropical Australia. Emissions of PAHs are found to be sensitive to differences in combustion efficiencies rather than fuel types reflecting a formation mechanism. In contrast, revolatilisation may be important for other SVOCs such as PCBs. Based on the EFs determined in this work, estimates of the annual emissions of these SVOCs from Australian bushfires/wildfires are achieved, including for example ∑ PAHs (160 (min)-1,100 (max) Mg), ∑ PCBs (14-300 kg), ∑ PBDEs (8.8-590 kg), α-endosulfan (6.5-200 kg) and chlorpyrifos (up to 1,400 kg), as well as dioxin toxic equivalents (TEQ) of ∑ dl-PCBs (0.018-1.4 g). Emissions of SVOCs that are predominantly revolatilised appear to be related to their use history, with higher emissions estimated for chemicals that had a greater historical usage and were banned only recently or are still in use.

During late winter (March) in the Bering Sea, levels of Se in livers and Cd in kidneys of spectacled eiders Somateria fischeri were exceptionally high (up to 489 and 312 µg g −1 dry mass, respectively). Comparison of organ and blood samples during late winter, early spring migration, and breeding suggests that the eiders' high Se and Cd burdens were accumulated at sea, with highest exposure during winter. High exposure may have resulted from high metabolic demands and food intake, as well as concentrations in food. In the eiders' remote wintering area, their bivalve prey contained comparable Se levels and much higher Cd levels than in industrialized areas. Patterns of chlorophyll a in water and sediments indicated that phytoplankton detritus settling over a large area was advected into a persistent regional eddy, where benthic prey densities were higher than elsewhere and most eider foraging occurred. Se and Cd assimilated or adsorbed by bloom materials apparently also accumulated in the eddy, and were incorporated into the bivalve prey of eiders. Atmospheric deposition of dust-borne trace elements from Asia, which peaks during the ice-edge phytoplankton bloom from March to May, may augment processes that concentrate Se and Cd in eider prey. Compared with freshwater birds, some sea ducks (Mergini) accumulate much higher concentrations of trace elements, even with the same levels in food, with no apparent ill effects. Nevertheless, the absolute and relative burdens of different elements in sea ducks vary greatly among areas. Our results suggest these patterns can result from (1) exceptional accumulation and tolerance of trace elements when exposure is elevated by high food intake or levels in food, and (2) atmospheric and oceanographic processes that concentrate trace elements in local benthic food webs.

Atmospheric transport models and observations from monitoring networks are commonly used aids for forecasting spatial distribution of contamination in case of a radiological incident. In this study, we assessed the particle filter dataassimilation technique as a tool for ensemble forecasting the spread of radioactivity. We used measurements from the ETEX-1 tracer experiment and model results from the NPK-Puff atmospheric dispersion model. We showed that assimilation of observations improves the ensemble forecast compared to runs without data assimilation. The improvement is most prominent for nowcasting: the mean squared error was reduced by a factor of 7. For forecasting, the improvement of the mean squared error resulting from assimilation of observations was found to dissipate within a few hours. We ranked absolute model values and observations and calculated the mean squared error of the ranked values. This measure of the correctness of the pattern of high and low values showed an improvement for forecasting up to 48 hours. We conclude that the particle filter is an effective tool in better modeling the spread of radioactivity following a release.

In Greece, to date, a detailed emission inventory database from transport is not available. The Greek Ministry for the Environmental Physical Planning and Public Works has financed an "Emission Inventory System from Transport" (EIST). The EIST aims to be the first detailed and well-structured national emission database from transport (road, rail, air and sea transport and also offroad activities), focusing on the best-input datasets available, the most advanced pollutant emission algorithms and the highest spatial and temporal resolutions. The EIST can also be used as a decision support system (DSS) for environmental planning and development, as it is possible to examine the environmental effects of various "emission scenarios" which result from the application of different environmental measures and policies. The EIST was developed in distributed software fashion technology for "Windows 2000". Its architecture involves an integrated framework of GIS and RDBMS technology systems equipped with interactive communication capabilities between peripheral software tools. In the present paper, the structure of the system is presented with emphasis on the emission calculation methodology applied. In order to illustrate the functionalities of the system, emission results, primarily derived from the geographical information system, are presented and some initial conclusions regarding the emissions from the transport sector in Greece are drawn.

The principal objectives here are to quantify the strengths of global monsoon circulations in terms of cross-equatorial moisture transport and to verify its behaviour during two extreme years of precipitation over the Amazon Basin. The National Centers for Environmental Prediction / National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) Reanalysis data sets for the period 1950-2012 are used in this study and the results are compared with calculations from ERA-Interim data. During the South Asian summer monsoon (JJA), the transport is 82.1 × 10 7 kg s −1 between 30 ∘ and 90 ∘ E from the Southern Hemisphere (SH) to the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and reverses to 41.4 × 10 7 kg s −1 from NH to SH in northern winter (DJF). Over South America between 30 ∘ and 90 ∘ W, the values are 31.4 × 10 7 kg s −1 in DJF from NH to SH and 21.5 × 10 7 kg s −1 in JJA from SH to NH. Although there is no wind reversal from summer to winter seasons over the South American monsoon region, the moisture transport across the equator reverses. The transports during a weak and a strong monsoon in the Amazon Basin are distinctly different suggesting that the cross-equatorial moisture transport can be used as a Monsoon Intensity Index (MII). For the South American monsoon, the DJF index is 28.5 × 10 7 kg s −1 in the dry year 2004-2005 and 45.1 × 10 7 kg s −1 in the wet year 2011-2012 as against the climatological value of 31.4 × 10 7 kg s −1. There is an indication of an inverse relation between the MIIs over the Amazon Basin and the Australian sectors. The annual mean moisture transport across the equator is from SH to NH and is equivalent to three Amazon River discharges.

We present in this thesis the development of a large-scale bidimensional atmospheric transport scheme designed for parallel architectures with scalability in mind. The current version, named Pangolin, contains a bi-dimensional advection and a simple linear chemistry scheme for stratospheric ozone and will serve as a basis for a future CTM. For mass-preservation, a van Leer finite-volume scheme was chosen for advection and extended to 2D with operator splitting. To ensure mass preservation, winds are corrected in a preprocessing step. We aim at addressing the "pole issue" of the traditional regular latitude-longitude by presenting a new quasi-area-preserving grid mapping the sphere uniformly. The parallelization of the model is based on the advection operator and a custom domain-decomposition algorithm is presented here to attain load-balancing in a message-passing context. To run efficiently on current and future parallel architectures, algebraic features of the grid are e...

Transport and deposition of current use (CUP) and legacy pesticides (LP) and residual products to the Arctic have been documented in abiotic matrices. These observations show that some "low-persistence" pesticides with high OH• reaction rates are stable enough to accumulate in a polar environment. In 2005, we drilled an ice core on Holtedahlfonna, one of the major ice fields on Svalbard, Norway to measure the input of 47 CUPs and 17 LPs to a high-elevation abiotic environment with no local pesticide sources. Of these, 9 CUPs and 12 LPs were observed in at least one of 6 core segments dating to 1953: 15 of these were found in enough core segments to reveal time-related trends. CUPs often observed included chlorpyrifos, dacthal, aand bendosulfan, endosulfan sulfate, trifluralin, and g-HCH. LPs most often observed included methoxychlor, aand g-chlordane, cis-and trans-nonachlor, endrin, dieldrin, and p,p′-DDE. In our comparison of core burdens at Holtedahlfonna and Austfonna (220 km ENE from Holtedahlfonna), we found twice as many CUPs at Austfonna along with greater amounts of dieldrin, methoxychlor, a-endosulfan and chlorpyrifos suggesting different accumulation processes or sources. Air mass back trajectories over a 10-year period of comparison between sites (1986-1995) show air mass flow from Eurasia 74% of the time to Austfonna and 45% to Holtedahfonna which may account for some of the differences.

Wildfires release large amounts of greenhouse gases, carbonaceous aerosols, and other pollutants, therefore having complex impacts on the earth climate, local weather, and air quality. To study the transport of the wildfire emissions, a plume height dataset has been developed. The resulting dataset from 2002 to 2010 captured well the observed MISR plume height distribution. By adding the plume height dataset in the climate model, the plume-rise enhanced AOD downstream of the wildfire spots by 20 to 50%. Moreover, an online plume rise module for CAM5 has been developed, allowing for the feedbacks of climate/weather on fire plume rise. As an application of this developed plume height dataset, the impact of West Canada wildfires (WCWs) on Northeast United States (NEUS) have been investigated. The observed OC/EC ratios over the NEUS show significant correlations with WCWs burned area since 2001. Detailed analysis and modeling simulations show that the strength of wildfire explains 48% v...

Fifteen chemistry-transport models are used to quantify, for the first time, the export of oxidised nitrogen (NO y) to and from four regions (Europe, North America, South Asia, and East Asia), and to estimate the uncertainty in the results. Between 12 and 24% of the NO x emitted is exported from each region annually. The strongest impact of each source region on a foreign region is:

While the biophysics of anemophilous pollen dispersal is understood in principle, empirical studies for testing such principles are rare, particularly in native ecosystems. This paper describes mechanisms underlying the dispersal of Artemisia pollen in a Wyoming sagebrush steppe. The relationships between meteorological variables and pollen flux were defined during the 1999 Artemisia flowering season, and detailed processes at the individual plant level were experimentally tested in the field in 2000. Results indicated that Artemisia pollen presentation is continuous but with early morning maxima. Atmospheric pollen concentrations and potential dispersal rates are controlled at diurnal time scales by individual flower development together with characteristic changes in temperature/humidity and wind speeds, at multi-day scales by frontal weather patterns, and at week-long scales by flowering phenology.

We simulated the global transport of dust emitted from all major dust source regions on earth by using a global three-dimensional chemical transport model for the year 2000. A modified dust emission flux scheme and an advanced nonlocal diffusion scheme for accurately determining the atmospheric eddy diffusivity in the atmospheric boundary layer were implemented to improve the chemical transport model. We specifically examined and analyzed dust storms that occurred in China and northern Africa. Four scenarios representing the global transport of dust from dust storms originating in the Loess region and the Gobi, Takla Makan, and Sahara deserts, respectively, were simulated. The results of each scenario were then compared with those resulting from all major dust source regions on earth, to identify which deserts have a major impact on dust transport and its deposition in Japan. The dust from the Sahara desert, most from the western part that was found in this study, reached Japan in 9-10 days, while Gobi and Loess region dust took 2 to 3 days, and 4 days for Takla Makan dust. The model-calculated monthly total deposition of dust mass from all major dust source regions was compared with comprehensive measurements of total deposition collected at sampling stations distributed over Japan, and good agreement was generally found. From these analyses, it was also indicated that dust emitted from other deserts, including the Turkestan, Iranian, and Arabian, could have a significant impact on dust deposition on Japan.

An ice core drilled at Aurora Peak in southeast Alaska was analysed for homologous series of straight chain fatty acids (C 12:0-C 30:0) including unsaturated fatty acid (oleic acid) using gas chromatography (GC/FID) and GC/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Molecular distributions of fatty acids are characterized by even carbon number predominance with a peak at palmitic acid (C 16:0 , av. 20.3 ± SD. 29.8 ng/g-ice) followed by oleic acid (C 18:1 , 19.6 ±38.6 ng/g-ice) and myristic acid (C 14:0 , 15.3 ±21.9 ng/g-ice). The historical trends of short-chain fatty acids, together with correlation analysis with inorganic ions and organic tracers suggest that short-chain fatty acids (except for C 12:0 and C 15:0) were mainly derived from sea surface micro layers through bubble bursting mechanism and transported over the glacier through the atmosphere. This atmospheric transport process is suggested to be linked with Kamchatka ice core δD record from Northeast Asia and Greenland Temperature Anomaly (GTA). In contrast, long-chain fatty acids (C 20:0-C 30:0) are originated from terrestrial higher plants, soil organic matter and dusts, which are also linked with GTA. Hence, this study suggests that Alaskan fatty acids are strongly influenced by Pacific Decadal Oscillation/North Pacific Gyre Oscillation and/or extra tropical North Pacific surface climate and Arctic oscillation. We also found that decadal scale varaibility of C 18:1 /C 18:0 ratios in the Aurora Peak ice core correlate with the Kamchatka ice core δD, which reflects climate oscillations in the North Pacific. This study suggests that photochemical aging of organic aerosols could be controlled by climate periodicity.

The Chinese Gridded Industrial Pollutants Emission and Residue Model (ChnGIPERM) was used to investigate potential fractionation effects and atmospheric transport of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) derived from single-source emissions in China. Modeling the indicative PCBs (CB28, CB101, CB153, and CB180) revealed spatiotemporal trends in atmospheric transport, gas/particle partitioning, and primary and secondary fractionation effects. These included the inference that the Westerlies and East Asian monsoons affect atmospheric transport patterns of PCBs by influencing the atmospheric transport time (ATT). In this study, dispersion pathways with long ATTs in winter tended to have short ones in summer and vice versa. The modeled partitioning of PCB congeners between gas and particles was mainly controlled by temperature, which can further influence the ATT. The potential for primary and secondary fractionation was explored by means of numerical simulations with single-source emissions. Within ChnGIPERM, these phenomena were mainly controlled by the temperature and soil organic carbon content. The secondary fractionation of PCBs is a slow process, with model results suggesting a timescale of several decades.

Transport and deposition of current use (CUP) and legacy pesticides (LP) and residual products to the Arctic have been documented in abiotic matrices. These observations show that some "low-persistence" pesticides with high OH• reaction rates are stable enough to accumulate in a polar environment. In 2005, we drilled an ice core on Holtedahlfonna, one of the major ice fields on Svalbard, Norway to measure the input of 47 CUPs and 17 LPs to a high-elevation abiotic environment with no local pesticide sources. Of these, 9 CUPs and 12 LPs were observed in at least one of 6 core segments dating to 1953: 15 of these were found in enough core segments to reveal time-related trends. CUPs often observed included chlorpyrifos, dacthal, aand bendosulfan, endosulfan sulfate, trifluralin, and g-HCH. LPs most often observed included methoxychlor, aand g-chlordane, cis-and trans-nonachlor, endrin, dieldrin, and p,p′-DDE. In our comparison of core burdens at Holtedahlfonna and Austfonna (220 km ENE from Holtedahlfonna), we found twice as many CUPs at Austfonna along with greater amounts of dieldrin, methoxychlor, a-endosulfan and chlorpyrifos suggesting different accumulation processes or sources. Air mass back trajectories over a 10-year period of comparison between sites (1986-1995) show air mass flow from Eurasia 74% of the time to Austfonna and 45% to Holtedahfonna which may account for some of the differences.

Nowadays it is well accepted that background aerosols in the boundary layer over remote oceans are of marine origin and not aged continental. Particularly in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean at least four main important regions exhibit significant ocean primary productivity. They are the Bellingshausen–Amundsen Sea, the Weddell Sea, the southern Argentinean shelf and the southern Chilean coast. In this work, we have combined ground-based continuous atmospheric sampling of aerosol number concentration (ANC), over-sea dimethyl sulphide (DMS) measurements, chlorophyll a (chl a) concentration provided by Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite images, in situ meteorological data and monthly regional NCEP-NCAR re-analysis wind fields in order to investigate the relative contribution of each of the above regions to the apportionment of the ANC at King George Island (KGI), South Shetland Islands. Our results suggest that, at least during the period from September...

Dynamical processes leading to dust emission over Syria and Iraq, in response to a strong winter Shamal event as well as the subsequent transport of dust over Iraq and northwest Iran, are analyzed on the basis of a case study (22-23 February 2010) using a suite of ground-based and spaceborne remote sensing platforms together with modeling tools. Surface measurements on 22 February show a sharp reduction in horizontal visibility over Iraq occurring shortly after the passage of a cold front (behind which the northwesterly Shamal winds were blowing) and that visibilities could be as low as 1 km on average for 1-2 days in the wake of the front. The impact of the southwesterly Kaus winds blowing ahead (east) of the Shamal winds on dust emission over Iraq is also highlighted. Unlike what is observed over Iraq, low near-surface horizontal visibilities (<1 km) over northwest Iran are observed well after the passage of the cold front on 23 February, generally in the hours following sunrise. Ground-based lidar measurements acquired in Zanjan show that, in the wake of the front, dust from Syria/Iraq was transported in an elevated 1 to 1.5 km thick plume separated from the surface during the night/morning of 23 February. After sunrise, strong turbulence in the developing convective boundary layer led to mixing of the dust into the boundary layer and in turn to a sharp reduction of the horizontal visibility in Zanjan. The timing of the reduction of surface horizontal visibility in other stations over northwest Iran (Tabriz, Qom, and Tehran) is consistent with the downward mixing of dust in the planetary boundary layer just after sunset, as evidenced in Zanjan. This study sheds new light on the processes responsible for dust emission and transport over Iraq and northwest Iran in connection with winter Shamal events. Enhanced knowledge of these processes is key for improving dust forecasts in this region.

Nowadays it is well accepted that background aerosols in the boundary layer over remote oceans are of marine origin and not aged continental. Particularly in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean at least four main important regions exhibit significant ocean primary productivity. They are the Bellingshausen–Amundsen Sea, the Weddell Sea, the southern Argentinean shelf and the southern Chilean coast. In this work, we have combined ground-based continuous atmospheric sampling of aerosol number concentration (ANC), over-sea dimethyl sulphide (DMS) measurements, chlorophyll a (chl a) concentration provided by Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite images, in situ meteorological data and monthly regional NCEP-NCAR re-analysis wind fields in order to investigate the relative contribution of each of the above regions to the apportionment of the ANC at King George Island (KGI), South Shetland Islands. Our results suggest that, at least during the period from September...

Monthly CO 2 fluxes are estimated across 1988-2003 for 22 emission regions using data from 78 CO 2 measurement sites. The same inversion (method, priors, data) is performed with 13 different atmospheric transport models, and the spread in the results is taken as a measure of transport model error. Interannual variability (IAV) in the winds is not modeled, so any IAV in the measurements is attributed to IAV in the fluxes. When both this transport error and the random estimation errors are considered, the flux IAV obtained is statistically significant at P 0.05 when the fluxes are grouped into land and ocean components for three broad latitude bands, but is much less so when grouped into continents and basins. The transport errors have the largest impact in the extratropical northern latitudes. A third of the 22 emission regions have significant IAV, including the Tropical East Pacific (with physically plausible uptake/release across the 1997-2000 El Niño/La Niña) and Tropical Asia (with strong release in 1997/1998 coinciding with large-scale fires there). Most of the global IAV is attributed robustly to the tropical/southern land biosphere, including both the large release during the 1997/1998 El Niño and the post-Pinatubo uptake.

The global modeling initiative (GMI) science team is developing a three-dimensional chemistry and transport model (CTM) for use in assessment of the atmospheric effects of aviation. This model must be documented, be validated against observations, use a realistic atmospheric circulation, and contain numerical transport and photochemical modules representing atmospheric processes. The model must retain computational eificiency for multiple scenarios and sensitivity studies. To meet these requirements, a facility model concept was developed in which the different components of the CTM are evaluated separately. The assessment of the impact on the stratosphere of the exhaust of supersonic aircraft will depend strongly on the meteorological fields used by the CTM. Three data sets for the stratosphere were considered: the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate Model (CCM2), the Goddard Earth Observing System data assimilation system, and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies general circulation model. Objective criteria were developed to identify the data set that provides the best representation of the stratosphere. Simulations of gases with simple chemical control were chosen to test various aspects of model transport. The data sets were evaluated and graded on their performance on these tests. The CCM2 meteorological data set has the highest score and was selected for GMI. This objective model evaluation establishes a physical basis for interpretation of differences between models and observations. Further, the method provides a quantitative basis for defining model errors, for discriminating between different models, and for ready reevaluation of improved models. This will lead to higher confidence in assessment calculations. 1. Introduction The Atmospheric Effects of Stratospheric Aircraft (AESA) component of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) High Speed Research Program (HSRP) seeks to assess the impact of a fleet of high-speed civil transport (HSCT) aircraft on the

While the biophysics of anemophilous pollen dispersal is understood in principle, empirical studies for testing such principles are rare, particularly in native ecosystems. This paper describes mechanisms underlying the dispersal of Artemisia pollen in a Wyoming sagebrush steppe. The relationships between meteorological variables and pollen flux were defined during the 1999 Artemisia flowering season, and detailed processes at the individual plant level were experimentally tested in the field in 2000. Results indicated that Artemisia pollen presentation is continuous but with early morning maxima. Atmospheric pollen concentrations and potential dispersal rates are controlled at diurnal time scales by individual flower development together with characteristic changes in temperature/humidity and wind speeds, at multi-day scales by frontal weather patterns, and at week-long scales by flowering phenology.

While the biophysics of anemophilous pollen dispersal is understood in principle, empirical studies for testing such principles are rare, particularly in native ecosystems. This paper describes mechanisms underlying the dispersal of Artemisia pollen in a Wyoming sagebrush steppe. The relationships between meteorological variables and pollen flux were defined during the 1999 Artemisia flowering season, and detailed processes at the individual plant level were experimentally tested in the field in 2000. Results indicated that Artemisia pollen presentation is continuous but with early morning maxima. Atmospheric pollen concentrations and potential dispersal rates are controlled at diurnal time scales by individual flower development together with characteristic changes in temperature/humidity and wind speeds, at multi-day scales by frontal weather patterns, and at week-long scales by flowering phenology.

The present paper examines the vortex breakdown and large-scale stirring during the final warming of the Southern Hemisphere stratosphere during the spring of 2005. A unique set of in situ observations collected by 27 superpressure balloons (SPBs) is used. The balloons, which were launched from McMurdo, Antarctica, by the Stratéole/VORCORE project, drifted for several weeks on two different isopycnic levels in the lower stratosphere. We describe balloon trajectories and compare them with simulations obtained on the basis of the velocity field from the GEOS-5 and NCEP/NCAR reanalyses performed with and without VORCORE data. To gain insight on the mechanisms responsible for the horizontal transport of air inside and outside the well-isolated vortex we examine the balloon trajectories in the framework of the Lagrangian properties of the stratospheric flow. Coherent structures of the flow are visualized by computing finite-time Lyapunov exponents (FTLE). A combination of isentropic analysis and FTLE distributions reveals that air is stripped away from the vortex's interior as stable manifolds eventually cross the vortex's edge. It is shown that two SPBs escaped from the vortex within high potential vorticity tongues that developed in association with wave breaking at locations along the vortex's edge where forward and backward FTLE maxima approximately intersect. The trajectories of three SPBs flying as a group at the same isopycnic level are examined and their behavior is interpreted in reference to the FTLE field. These results support the concept of stable and unstable manifolds governing transport of air masses across the periphery of the stratospheric polar vortex. Keywords Stratospheric polar vortex dynamics Á Vortex breakdown Á Large-scale stirring Á Finite-time Lyapunov exponents Á Hyperbolic manifolds