Ozone diurnal variations and mean profiles in the mesosphere, lower thermosphere, and stratosphere, based on measurements from SABER on TIMED

Abstract

[1] Ozone measurements from SABER on the TIMED satellite form a unique data set. They provide global information over the range of local solar times, from the lower stratosphere into the lower thermosphere, from the beginning of 2002, by one instrument. On the basis of zonal means of these data, we present new results from 20 to 100 km in altitude and from 48°S to 48°N in latitude, of ozone diurnal variations over 24 h in local solar time and over an annual cycle. While some of the results are new for the stratosphere, such comprehensive results for the mesosphere and lower thermosphere have not been available before. The diurnal variations generally become increasingly significant from the upper stratosphere into the lower thermosphere and provide information on the photochemistry of ozone and effects of transport over a diurnal cycle. Over most altitudes in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT), our estimates show the expected decrease in ozone after sunrise, with smaller variations during the day, and the increase near sunset. Outside of a small altitude near 80 km, the nighttime mixing ratios are generally larger than the daytime values. The diurnal variations themselves appear to exhibit variations over an annual cycle, including semiannual and annual variations. We compare the SABER results with data obtained about 10 years earlier by the MLS instrument on UARS, and with results by others based on data from HRDI on UARS, from the Solar Mesosphere Explorer (SME), from selected space shuttle experiments, and from ground-based measurements. From the middle mesosphere to higher altitudes, departures from local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) can be significant, and the uncertainties can be larger than those at lower altitudes.Citation: Huang, F. T., H. G. Mayr, J. M. Russell III, M. G. Mlynczak, and C. A. Reber (2008), Ozone diurnal variations and mean profiles in the mesosphere, lower thermosphere, and stratosphere, based on measurements from SABER on TIMED,

Diurnal ozone variations in the stratosphere revealed in observations from the Superconducting Submillimeter‐Wave Limb‐Emission Sounder (SMILES) on board the International Space Station (ISS)

“…Our comparison showed that at 20-30 km, the amplitude derived from SABER is significantly larger than that from SMILES and the CTMs, while the phase is roughly consistent among the datasets. This considerably larger amplitude has been reported previously [Huang et al, 2008]. In contrast, the diurnal variations at 30-50 km derived from SABER data during this period are found to be affected by sampling issues because SABER requires data from a period of 60 days data to cover an entire diurnal cycle and, consequently, is more easily affected by background changes (in this case, by the changes associated with the semi-annual oscillation (SAO)).…”

The roles of vertical advection and eddy diffusion in the equatorial mesospheric semi-annual oscillation (MSAO)

“…Kyrölä et al (2006Kyrölä et al ( , 2010, using Envisat/GOMOS (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars) data, found that ozone (O 3 ) at 90 km peaked in equinox periods and was approximately a factor of three lower in solstice periods. Huang et al (2008) and Smith et al (2008) found a similar variation in O 3 using data from TIMED/SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry). Seasonal oscillations in mesospheric atomic oxygen (O) were inferred by Sheese et al (2011) using observations from OSIRIS (Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imaging System) (Llewellyn et al, 2004) on Odin, and by Smith et al (2010) using TIMED/SABER data.…”

“…The quasi-biennial oscillations noted by Shepherd et al (2006) are not immedi- ately apparent in the GOMOS O 3 observations in the equatorial region. Huang et al (2008), using the SABER instrument on the TIMED satellite, also observed a strong seasonal variation in O 3 at 90 km at the Equator. However, their maximum O 3 viewing altitude is limited to approximately 90 km, and thus they do not delineate a secondary O 3 density peak as definitively.…”

Daily ozone cycle in the stratosphere: global, regional and seasonal behaviour modelled with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model

“…Satellite-based observations from SMILES (Kikuchi et al, 2013), SABER and MLS showed a morning minimum and a late-afternoon maximum in the daily ozone cycle in the tropics and subtropics (Huang et al, 2008;Sakazaki et al, 2013). In Fig.…”

“…Later, Studer et al (2014) derived a monthly climatology of diurnal variation in stratospheric and mesospheric ozone from 17 years of GROMOS observations. Satellite-based observations from SMILES (Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder) (Kikuchi et al, 2013), SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) (Russell et al, 1999) and MLS (Microwave Limb Sounder) (Barth et al, 1983) showed the existence of a daily ozone cycle in the stratosphere at tropical and midlatitudes (Huang et al, 2008;Sakazaki et al, 2013). There is also some evidence that these data show good agreement with model data at tropical latitudes (Sakazaki et al, 2013).…”