ALBERT

Description: This is the second 'reference' or 'archival' paper for the SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes) network and is a follow-on to the recently accepted paper with similar first part of title. The latter paper compared SHADOZ total ozone with satellite and ground-based instruments and showed that the equatorial wave-one in total ozone is in the troposphere. The current paper presents details of the wave-one structure and the first overview of tropospheric ozone variability over the southern Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Ocean basins. The principal new result is that signals of climate effects, convection and offsets between biomass burning seasonality and tropospheric ozone maxima suggest that dynamical factors are perhaps more important than pollution in determining the tropical distribution of tropospheric ozone. The SHADOZ data at (〈http://code9l6.gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/shadoz〉) are setting records in website visits and are the first time that the zonal view of tropical ozone structure has been recorded - thanks to the distribution of the 10 sites that make up this validation network.

Description: Prior investigations attempted to determine the relative influence of advection and convective processes on ozone and water vapor distributions in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) through analyses of tracers, related physical parameters (e.g., outgoing long-wave radiation, precipitable water, and temperature), or with models. In this study, stable laminae in Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesonde Network (SHADOZ) ozone profIles from 1998 to 2007 are interpreted in terms of gravity waves (GW) or Rossby waves (RW) that are identified with vertical and quasi-horizontal displacements, respectively. Using the method of Pierce and Grant (1998) as applied by Thompson et al. (2007a, 2007b, 2010, 2011), amplitudes and frequencies in ozone laminae are compared among representative SHADOZ sites over Africa and the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans. GW signals maximize in the TTL and lower stratosphere. Depending on site and season, GW are identified in up to 90% of the soundings. GW are most prevalent over the Pacific and eastern Indian oceans, a distribution consistent with vertically propagating equatorial Kelvin waves. Ozone laminae from RW occur more often below the tropical tropopause and with lower frequency 20%). Gravity wave and Rossby wave indices (GWI, RWI) are formulated to facilitate analysis of interannual variability of wave signatures among sites. GWI is positively correlated with a standard ENSO (El Nino-Southern Oscillation) index over American Samoa (14degS, 171degW) and negatively correlated at Watukosek, Java (7.5degS, 114degE), Kuala Lumpur (3degN, 102degE), and Ascension Island (80degS, 15degW). Generally, the responses of GW and RW to ENSO are consistent with prior studies.

Description: SHADOZ aims to support the study of local and global patterns in stratospheric and tropospheric ozone and to provide a data set for the validation for satellite products and model calculations of ozone. Southern hemispheric tropical ozone is of particular interest because this region appears to have complex interplay among photochemical ozone formation (from biomass burning and lightning), stratospheric dynamics, convection and possibly cross-hemispheric transport. Balloon-borne ozone instrumentation (ozonesondes), joined with standard radiosondes for measurement of pressure, temperature and relative humidity, is used to collect profiles throughout the troposphere and lower- to mid-stratosphere. A network of 10 southern hemisphere tropical and subtropical stations, called the Southern Hemisphere ADditional OZonesondes (SHADOZ) project, has been established from operational sites to assemble sonde data for 1998-2000. A status report on the archive, with station operating characteristics, will be given, along with some operational issues that may affect data analysis and interpretation.

Description: High aerosol loading over the northern Indian subcontinent can result in poor air quality leading to human health consequences and climate perturbations. The international 2008 TIGERZ experiment intensive operational period (IOP) was conducted in the Indo \Gangetic Plain (IGP) around the industrial city of Kanpur (26.51degN, 80.23deg E), India, during the premonsoon (April-June). Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) Sun photometers performed frequent measurements of aerosol properties at temporary sites distributed within an area covering 50 sq km around Kanpur to characterize pollution and dust in a region where complex aerosol mixtures and semi \bright surface effects complicate satellite retrieval algorithms. TIGERZ IOP Sun photometers quantified aerosol optical depth (AOD) increases up to 0.10 within and downwind of the city, with urban emissions accounting for 10 C20% of the IGP aerosol loading on deployment days. TIGERZ IOP area \averaged volume size distribution and single scattering albedo retrievals indicated spatially homogeneous, uniformly sized, spectrally absorbing pollution and dust particles. Aerosol absorption and size relationships were used to categorize black carbon and dust as dominant absorbers and to identify a third category in which both black carbon and dust dominate absorption.Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) AOD retrievals with the lowest quality assurance (QA 〉 or = 0) flags were biased high with respect to TIGERZ IOP area \averaged measurements. MODIS AOD retrievals with QA 0 had moderate correlation (R(sup 2) = 0.52-69) with the Kanpur AERONET site, whereas retrievals with QA 〉 0 were limited in number. Mesoscale \distributed Sun photometers quantified temporal and spatial variability of aerosol properties, and these results were used to validate satellite retrievals.

Description: Using a convective clouds differential (CCD) method, developed in house and applied to retrievals of total ozone and cloud data from three European satellite instruments (viz. GOME/ERS-2 (19952003), SCIAMACHY/Envisat (20022012), and GOME-2/MetOp-A (20072015)) monthly mean tropical tropospheric columns of ozone (TTCO) have been retrieved, which are in good agreement with ozonesondes (biases less than 6 DU). As small differences in TTCO between the individual instruments were evident, it was necessary to develop a scheme to harmonise the three datasets into one consistent timeseries starting from 1996 until 2015. Correction offsets (bias) between the instruments using SCIAMACHY as intermediate reference have been calculated and six different harmonisation/merging scenarios have been evaluated. Depending on the merging approach, the magnitude, pattern, and uncertainty of the trends strongly vary. The harmonisation/merging represents an additional source of uncertainty in the trends (2 DU/decade on average, exceeding in most of the cases the uncertainty from the regression). For studying further details on tropospheric ozone trends on various spatial scales in the tropics we stick with one preferred merged dataset that shows best agreement with ozonesondes. In this merged dataset no correction was applied for GOME, and mean biases with respect to SCIAMACHY in the overlapping period (20072012) were calculated and applied for GOME-2 in each grid-box (2.5 x 5). In contrast with other studies we found that the tropospheric trend averaged over the tropics (15S15N) is not statistically significant. The mean tropospheric ozone trend equals -0.2 +/- 0.6 DU decade(exp -1)(2). Regionally, tropospheric ozone has a statistically significant increase of ~3 DU decade(exp -1) over southern Africa (~1.5% year(exp -1)), the southern tropical Atlantic (~1.5% year(exp -1)), southeastern tropical Pacific Ocean (~1% year(exp -1)), and central Oceania (~2% year(exp -1)) and by ~2 DU decade(exp -1) over central Africa (22.5% year(exp -1)) and south India (~1.5% year(exp -1)). On the other hand, tropospheric O3 decreases by ~3 DU decade(exp -1) over the Caribbean sea and parts of the North Pacific Ocean (~2% year(exp -1)), and by less than 2 DU decade(exp -1) over some regions of the southern Pacific and Indian Ocean (~ 0.5 1% year(exp -1)).

Description: Observations from long-term ozonesonde measurements show robust variations and trends in the evolution of ozone in the middle and upper troposphere over Reunion Island (21.1 degrees South Latitude, 55.5 degrees East Longitude) in June-August. Here we examine possible causes of the observed ozone variation at Reunion Island using hindcast simulations by the stratosphere-troposphere Global Modeling Initiative chemical transport model for 1992-2014, driven by assimilated Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) meteorological fields. Reunion Island is at the edge of the subtropical jet, a region of strong stratospheric-tropospheric exchange. Our analysis implies that the large interannual variation (IAV) of upper tropospheric ozone over Reunion is driven by the large IAV of the stratospheric influence. The IAV of the large-scale, quasi-horizontal wind patterns also contributes to the IAV of ozone in the upper troposphere. Comparison to a simulation with constant emissions indicates that increasing emissions do not lead to the maximum trend in the middle and upper troposphere over Reunion during austral winter implied by the sonde data. The effects of increasing emission over southern Africa are limited tothe lower troposphere near the surface in August-September.