[en] Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is a greenhouse gas that is emitted at the surface because of its use in electrical transmission equipment and electronic devices. Due to its quasi-linear emission growth and its very long lifetime, SF6 has been used in the literature as a tracer for the Age of Air (AoA) to diagnose changes in the Brewer Dobson Circulation (BDC). The chemistry of SF6 has been implemented in the Chemistry Transport Model (CTM) of the Belgian Assimilation System for Chemical ObsErvations (BASCOE). The chemical reaction scheme follows that of Löffel et al. (2022) while the reaction rates and electron climatology were obtained from Reddmann et al. (2001)
In this contribution, BASCOE-CTM simulations driven by ERA5 and MERRA2 are discussed considering SF6 with mesospheric sinks. During the course of the simulations, the computed mixing ratios have also been saved in the space of MIPAS observations (version V5R_224/225) to analyze the impact of sampling on the final picture.
