Tropospheric ozone derived from satellite data

Abstract

Determination of the distribution and amount of ozone throughout our atmosphere is of paramount importance in understanding the crucial role and evolution of ozone. Due to the fact that both ground-based and space-based sensors have difficulty measuring ozone abundances in the lower atmosphere, the distribution of ozone in the troposphere is not well characterized. One method to derive tropospheric ozone fields is to subtract measured stratospheric fields from the measured total ozone column amount. Tropospheric ozone has climatic impact, since ozone is a greenhouse gas, as well as chemical impact, since ozone photolysis in the presence of water vapor is the leading source of atmospheric hydroxyl radicals (OH). The need for more ground truth data is also recognized.