Comparison and covalidation of ozone anomalies and variability observed in SBUV(/2) and Umkehr northern midlatitude ozone profile estimates

Abstract

This analysis presents comparisons of upper‐stratosphere ozone information observed by two independent systems: the Solar Backscatter UltraViolet (SBUV and SBUV/2) satellite instruments, and ground‐based Dobson spectrophotometers. Both the new SBUV Version 8 and the new UMK04 profile retrieval algorithms are optimized for studying long‐term variability and trends in ozone. Trend analyses of the ozone time series from the SBUV(/2) data set are complex because of the multiple instruments involved, changes in the instruments' geo‐location, and short periods of overlaps for inter‐calibrations among different instruments. Three northern middle latitudes Dobson ground stations (Arosa, Boulder, and Tateno) are used in this analysis to validate the trend quality of the combined 25‐year SBUV/2 time series, 1979 to 2003. Generally, differences between the satellite and ground‐based data do not suggest any significant time‐dependent shifts or trends. The shared features confirm the value of these data sets for studies of ozone variability.