Global distribution and southern hemispheric trends of atmospheric CCI sub(3)F

The spatial and temporal variability of the tropospherically inert tracer, trichlorofluoromethane (CCI sub(3)F), has been simulated using a global atmospheric transport model, incorporating an advective-diffusive transport scheme and known release and photolytic data. The observational data are taken from the Geophysical Monitoring for Climatic Change (GMCC) global network, from the Pacific north-west (PNW) USA and South Pole, and from the CSIRO southern hemispheric stations at Cape Grim, Tasmania, and Mawson, Antarctica. The resulting global CCI sub(3)F distribution is shown. A current CCI sub(3)F atmospheric lifetime of 75 yr is obtained. The observations suggest that small, residual errors may exist in the CCI sub(3)F release data.