Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract. This study investigates the coupling between chemical and dynamical processes driving tropical middle stratospheric ozone (O3) variability using a causal inference framework that combines causal discovery with causal effect estimation. This approach integrates qualitative physical knowledge through a causal graph applied to satellite observations and a chemistry-transport model (CTM) simulation. The analysis is split into two subperiods of monthly data: 2004–2011, characterized by an O3 decrease, and 2012–2018, when O3 increased in the tropical middle stratosphere. Causal inference identifies distinct processes governing O3 behaviour. During 2004–2011, a robust negative contemporaneous connection from N2O to NO2 emerged, while in 2012–2018 this shifted to a one-month lag. This slower response reduced NO2 production from N2O oxidation, limiting O3 loss via the NOx catalytic cycle. Further analysis across Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) regimes reveals regime-dependent differences in the causal links. The N2O to NO2 connection is weaker during westerly shear, associated with reduced upwelling, and stronger during easterly shear, reflecting enhanced upwelling. Our study highlights the pivotal role that causal inference can play in disentangling complex chemical-dynamical influences on O3, complementing traditional statistical methods. This approach lays the foundation for broader applications in stratospheric chemistry, where many relations remain uncertain. By discovering and quantifying causal links, this methodology addresses open questions with environmental and societal relevance. Therefore, integrating causal reasoning into data-driven science enhances process understanding and strengthens the synergy between machine learning and statistical methods in Earth and environmental sciences.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.014 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.018 | 0.009 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.322 | 0.187 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".