Ozone climatology and its variability from ground based and satellite observations over Irene, South Africa (25.5º S; 28.1º E) – Part 2: Total column ozone variations

Abstract

In this research, the climatological characteristics of total column ozone (ToZ) over Irene, South Africa (25.5o S, 28.1o E), are studied using both ground-based and satellite observations. Satellite data from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) from November 1978 to May 1993; the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-1 (GOME-1) from August 1995 to June 2003; the Earth Probe Total Ozone Monitoring Spectrometer (EP-TOMS) from January 1997 to December 2005; the Microwave Limb Sounder from October 2004 to April 2013; the Ozone Monitoring Interferometer (OMI) from October 2004 to December 2013; the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) from January 2007 to December 2013; and the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) from June 2008 to December 2011, were used in this study together with ground-based measurement from a Dobson instrument (August 1989 to December 2011). The seven satellite and ground-based instruments used for this study were selected as they provide long term ozone monitoring data. Satellite observations were collected when they overpass Irene and showed that ToZ replicated the expected behavior of spring maximum and autumn minimum. When compared with other satellite data sets, TOMS ToZ data displayed values approximately 8 DU higher overall but showed good general agreement with measurements from the ground-based Dobson instrument. The OMI instrument had the best agreement with the Dobson instrument as the measurements are within 5 DU for all seasons. The result of trend trend analysis of ozone over Irene shows a significant decrease of ~8 DU in total ozone from 1978 to 1993 with a gradual recovery and increase of ~2 DU in total ozone from 1995 to 2005 as measured by both GOME-1 and EPTOMS. An increase of approximately 7-9 DU is observed in measurements from OMI and IASI thereby illustrating the gradual recovery of the ozone layer. EPTOMS also showed good agreement with the Dobson instrument. GOME-1 and GOME-2 reveal underestimation of ozone while IASI overestimated ozone for the first half of the year. Between 1995 and 2005, both EPTOMS and GOME-1 data showed a gradual increase in column ozone of approximately 2 DU which has increased to approximately 7 DU in the last decade as measured by OMI, GOME-2 and IASI satellites. The result obtained showed a very strong correlation (~97%) between the variation in OMI-Dobson and GOME-2-Dobson and (~85%) between the variation in EPTOMS-Dobson and GOME-1-Dobson.