Vertical profiles of ozone obtained from ozonesondes in Brazzaville, Congo (4 degrees S, 15 degrees E), and Ascension Island (8 degrees S, 15 degrees W) show that large quantities of tropospheric ozone are present over southern Africa and the adjacent eastern tropical South Atlantic Ocean. The origin of this pollution is widespread biomass burning in Africa. These measurements support satellite-derived tropospheric ozone data that demonstrate that ozone originating from this region is transported throughout most of the Southern Hemisphere. Seasonally high levels of carbon monoxide and methane observed at middle- and high-latitude stations in Africa, Australia, and Antarctica likely reflect the effects of this distant biomass burning. These data suggest that even the most remote regions on this planet may be significantly more polluted than previously believed.

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We address the problem of air mass trajectory uncertainty through an intercomparison of trajectories computed from operational meteorological analyses from the region and time period of the NASA/GTE/TRACE A experiment. This paper examines the trajectory uncertainty that results from the input meteorological analyses. We first compare the National Meteorological Center (NMC) and European Centre for Medium‐Range Forecasts (ECMWF) meteorological analyses to an independent set of observations, the dropsondes released from the NASA DC‐8 over the South Atlantic during TRACE A. We also compare the gridded wind and temperature fields with selected rawinsonde data that entered the analyses. These comparisons show that the ECMWF fields are marginally better than the ones from NMC, particularly in the tropical regions of the southern hemisphere. The NMC analyses are marginally better in the midlatitude westerlies in some cases. In general, slightly more confidence can be placed in trajectories computed with ECMWF data over the TRACE A region, based on our comparisons of the analyses with observations. Second, we compute 5‐day back trajectories with three different models from a grid of points over the South Atlantic and adjacent portions of South America and Africa as well as on the track of TRACE A flight 15 over the South Atlantic. When using the Goddard Space Flight Center isentropic model, horizontal separations of greater than 1000 km occur for about 50% of the points when trajectories run with the ECMWF and NMC analyses are compared. Greater sensitivity to the input analysis differences is noted when trajectories are computed with the FSU kinematic model (separations exceed 1000 km for 75% of the points). The problem of meteorological uncertainty should be addressed with two approaches. There are large differences between both sets of analyses and the TRACE A soundings; this is also likely to be the case in other remote regions. Therefore we recommend that a test set of trajectories be computed with both sets of input data to quantify the uncertainty due to analysis differences. In addition, clusters of trajectories about the points of interest should be run to assess the uncertainty due to wind shear. These recommendations are applicable to any region of the globe with sparse observations. The companion paper [Fuelberg et al., this issue, part 2] addresses uncertainties due to trajectory technique.

Measurements froni two independent satellite data sets have been used to derive the climatology of the integrated amount of ozone in the troposphere.These data have led to the finding that large amounts of ozone pollution are generated by anthropogenic activity originating from both the industrialized regions of the Northern Hemisphere and from the southern tropical regions of Africa. To verify the existence of this ozone anonialy at low latitudes, an ozonesonde capability has been established at Ascension Island (8° 5, 15° W) since July 1990. According to the satellite analyses, Ascension Island is located downwind of the primary source region of this ozone pollution, which likely results from the photocheinical oxidation of emissions emanating from the widespread burning of savannas and other bioinass. These in situ measurements confirm the existence of large amounts of ozone in the lower atmosphere. A summary of these ozonesonde data to date will be presented.In addition, we will present some ozone profile measurements from SAGE II which can be used to provide upper tropospheric ozone measurements directly in the tropical troposphere.A preliminary comparison between the satellite observations and the ozonesonde profiles in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere will also be presented.