Inner-tropical ozone measurements at the Mérida Atmospheric Research Station (MARS) using ground-based microwave radiometry

Abstract

Since March 2004 the ground-based 268–280 GHz radiometer MIRA 2 has been in quasi-continuous operation at the inner-tropical Mérida Atmospheric Research Station (MARS) on Pico Espejo (8.58°N, 71.15°W, 4765 m above sea level) in the Venezuelan Andes. Using the optimal estimation method concentration profiles of ozone have been retrieved in the stratosphere and mesosphere. In the middle stratosphere variations of ozone on a time scale of several months were revealed in the resulting time series that probably result from the turnaround of the Brewer–Dobson circulation. In the mesosphere photochemistry plays the most important role for the ozone concentration. Therefore a diurnal cycle is observed in the upper part of the retrieved ozone profiles. The measurements are used to verify model results of ozone in the mesosphere obtained by a photochemistry model, which reproduces the diurnal variation of ozone very well. Also an inter-annual variation of mesospheric ozone during the month of November in 2004–2007 was observed, primarily during the night. As the time series is still too short to clearly distinguish solar or QBO signals, the cause of this inter-annual variation cannot yet be related to one or the other. In November 2006 an unusual decrease of the ozone partial columns above 60 km was measured; the cause of this decrease is also not identified so far.