Global validation of FY-3A total ozone unit (TOU) total ozone columns using ground-based Brewer and Dobson measurements

Abstract

Analysis of the accuracy and variability of total ozone columns (TOC) has been conducted by many studies, while the TOC observations derived from the total ozone unit (TOU) on board the Chinese FengYun-3A (FY-3A) satellite platform are notably less well documented. Therefore, in this present study, we mainly focus on the global-scale validation of TOU-derived total ozone column data by comparing them with spatially and temporally co-located ground-based measurements from the well-established Brewer and Dobson spectrophotometer for the period July 2009 through December 2011. The results show that TOU-derived total ozone column data yields high accuracy, with the root mean square error less than 5% in comparison with ground-based measurements. Meanwhile, TOU underestimates Brewer measurements by 1.1% in the Northern Hemisphere and overestimates Dobson total ozone 0.3% globally. In addition, TOU-derived total ozone shows no significant dependence on latitude in comparison with either Brewer or Dobson total ozone measurements. Nevertheless, a significant dependence of TOU-derived total ozone is observed on the solar zenith angle (SZA) in comparison with both Brewer and Dobson, demonstrating that TOU underestimates at large SZA and overestimates at small SZA. Finally, the dependence of satellite – ground-based relative difference for total ozone values shows fair agreement when total ozone values are in the range 250–450 Dobson units (DU). Overall, the Chinese FY-3A/TOU performs well on total ozone retrieval with high accuracy, and the total ozone data derived from the TOU can be used as a reliable data source for ozone monitoring and other atmospheric applications.