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The stratospheric ozone layer shields surface life from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Following the Montreal Protocol ban on long-lived ozone-depleting substances (ODSs), rapid depletion of total column ozone (TCO) ceased in the late 1990s, and ozone above 32 km is now clearly recovering. However, there is still no confirmation of TCO recovery, and evidence has emerged that ongoing quasi-global (60^∘ S–60^∘ N) lower stratospheric ozone decreases may be responsible, dominated by low latitudes (30^∘ S–30^∘ N). Chemistry–climate models (CCMs) used to project future changes predict that lower stratospheric ozone will decrease in the tropics by 2100 but not at mid-latitudes (30–60^∘). Here, we show that CCMs display an ozone decline similar to that observed in the tropics over 1998–2016, likely driven by an increase in tropical upwelling. On the other hand, mid-latitude lower stratospheric ozone is observed to decrease, while CCMs that specify real-world historical meteorological fields instead show an increase up to present day. However, these cannot be used to simulate future changes; we demonstrate here that free-running CCMs used for projections also show increases. Despite opposing lower stratospheric ozone changes, which should induce opposite temperature trends, CCMs and observed temperature trends agree; we demonstrate that opposing model–observation stratospheric water vapour (SWV) trends, and their associated radiative effects, explain why temperature changes agree in spite of opposing ozone trends. We provide new evidence that the observed mid-latitude trends can be explained by enhanced mixing …