  The "edge" of the Antarctic polar vortex is known to behave as a barrier to
the meridional (poleward) transport of ozone during the austral winter. This
chemical isolation of the polar vortex from the middle and low latitudes
produces an ozone minimum in the vortex region, intensifying the ozone hole
relative to that which would be produced by photochemical processes alone.
Observational determination of the vortex edge remains an active field of
research. In this letter, we obtain objective estimates of the structure of the
polar vortex by introducing a new technique based on transfer operators that
aims to find regions with minimal external transport. Applying this new
technique to European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA-40
three-dimensional velocity data we produce an improved three-dimensional
estimate of the vortex location in the upper stratosphere where the vortex is
most pronounced. This novel computational approach has wide potential
application in detecting and analysing mixing structures in a variety of
atmospheric, oceanographic, and general fluid dynamical settings.
