Abstract
Abstract. In this paper we present a study of the ozone hole as observed by the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on-board the MetOp-A European satellite platform from the beginning of data dissemination, August 2008, to the end of December 2010. Here we demonstrate IASI's ability to capture the seasonal characteristics of the ozone hole, in particular during polar night. We compare IASI ozone total columns and vertical profiles with those of the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment 2 (GOME-2, also on-board MetOp-A) and electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozone sonde measurements. Total ozone column from IASI and GOME-2 were found to be in excellent agreement for this region with a correlation coefficient of 0.97, for September, October and November 2009. On average IASI exhibits a positive bias of approximately 7% compared to the GOME-2 measurements over the entire ozone hole period. Comparisons between IASI and ozone sonde measurements were also found to be in good agreement with the difference between both ozone profile measurements being less than ±30% over the altitude range of 0–40 km. The vertical structure of the ozone profile inside the ozone hole is captured remarkably well by IASI.
Highlights
Global monitoring of ozone (O3) is essential as it plays an important role in the chemical processes occurring in the atmosphere and has a major impact on the climate
The linear regression for each month, the confidence intervals and the 1:1 ratio reference line are presented in the figure. It is clear from the strong correlation coefficients for each month (r2 = 0.967, r2 = 0.973 and r2 = 0.975) that Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) and GOME-2 are closely comparable throughout the entire ozone hole region and period
This paper presents an assessment of the capabilities of IASI to perform continuous, precise measurements of the ozone hole
Summary
Global monitoring of ozone (O3) is essential as it plays an important role in the chemical processes occurring in the atmosphere and has a major impact on the climate. Studies have established that during this period the ozone hole extends over a large part of the Antarctic region and increases the level of UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface in the ozone hole region (Newman et al, 2007) This in turn leads to adverse impacts on human health in parts of South America (de Laat et al, 2010; Slaper et al, 1996). Nitric acid (HNO3), a byproduct of the heterogeneous reactions remains within the PSCs, which are lost from the stratosphere via sedimentation This denitrification process results in the unavailability of NOx to sequester the active chlorine species. The lack of nighttime measurements is a severe limitation for UV-vis instruments when it comes to the monitoring of the ozone hole As a result these instruments have large data gaps which can be filled using assimilated data (e.g. Kiesewetter et al, 2010, van der A, 2010).
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