Retrieval of ozone column content from airborne Sun photometer measurements during SOLVE II: comparison with coincident satellite and aircraft measurements

Abstract

Abstract. During the 2003 SAGE (Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment) III Ozone Loss and Validation Experiment (SOLVE) II, the fourteen-channel NASA Ames Airborne Tracking Sunphotometer (AATS-14) was mounted on the NASA DC-8 aircraft and measured spectra of total and aerosol optical depth (TOD and AOD) during the sunlit portions of eight science flights. Values of ozone column content above the aircraft have been derived from the AATS-14 measurements by using a linear least squares method that exploits the differential ozone absorption in the seven AATS-14 channels located within the Chappuis band. We compare AATS-14 columnar ozone retrievals with temporally and spatially near-coincident measurements acquired by the SAGE III and the Polar Ozone and Aerosol Measurement (POAM) III satellite sensors during four solar occultation events observed by each satellite. RMS differences are 19 DU (7% of the AATS value) for AATS-SAGE and 10 DU (3% of the AATS value) for AATS-POAM. In these checks of consistency between AATS-14 and SAGE III or POAM III Correspondence to: J. M. Livingston (jlivingston@mail.arc.nasa.gov) ozone results, the AATS-14 analyses use airmass factors derived from the relative vertical profiles of ozone and aerosol extinction obtained by SAGE III or POAM III.

Airborne observation of aerosol optical depth during ARCTAS: vertical profiles, inter-comparison and fine-mode fraction

“…AATS-14 data acquisition, screening, calibration, reduction and uncertainty analysis are described below. They are similar to previous deployments of this instrument and its predecessor (Matsumoto et al, 1987;Russell et al, 1993aRussell et al, , b, 1999Russell et al, , 2007Schmid and Wehrli, 1995;Schmid et al, 1996Schmid et al, , 1998Schmid et al, , 2001Schmid et al, , 2003aLivingston et al, 2003Livingston et al, , 2005Livingston et al, , 2007Livingston et al, , 2009Redemann et al, 2003Redemann et al, , 2005Redemann et al, , 2009a.Ångström exponent and layer AOD are derived in Sects. 3.1.1 and 3.2.1, respectively.…”

“…For the summer phase, three of the filters were replaced with new ones with similar center wavelengths (451.2, 520.4, and 2139.1 nm) and half-maximum bandwidths (5.7, 5.2, and 15.2 nm). These channels permit separation of aerosol, water vapor, and, for measurements acquired at low solar elevation angles with small AOD (Livingston et al, 2005), ozone attenuation along the slant path from the Sun to the instrument. Because most AATS measurements during ARCTAS did not satisfy the solar elevation angle and AOD criteria required for retrieval of ozone slant or column attenuation, the ozone column contents were extracted from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) archived retrieval files and adjusted for the P-3B altitude using the 1976 standard ozone model vertical distribution.…”

Airborne observation of aerosol optical depth during ARCTAS: vertical profiles, inter-comparison, fine-mode fraction and horizontal variability

“…AATS-14 data acquisition, screening, calibration, reduction and uncertainty analysis are described below. They are similar to previous deployments of this instrument and its predecessor (Matsumoto et al, 1987;Russell et al, 1993aRussell et al, , b, 1999Russell et al, , 2007Schmid and Wehrli, 1995;Schmid et al, 1996Schmid et al, , 1998Schmid et al, , 2001Schmid et al, , 2003aLivingston et al, 2003Livingston et al, , 2005Livingston et al, , 2007Livingston et al, , 2009Redemann et al, 2003Redemann et al, , 2005Redemann et al, , 2009a. Ångström exponent and layer AOD are derived in Sects.…”

Comparison of MODIS 3 km and 10 km resolution aerosol optical depth retrievals over land with airborne sunphotometer measurements during ARCTAS summer 2008

“…The instrument has been described in detail in several previous publications (e.g., Russell et al, 2005Russell et al, , 2007, and references therein). Our methods for data acquisition and analysis have been well documented in the literature (Russell et al, 1993a, b;Schmid and Wehrli, 1995;Schmid et al, 1996Schmid et al, , 1998Schmid et al, , 2001Schmid et al, , 2003aLivingston et al, 2005Livingston et al, , 2007. Most recently, citing the previous publications, detailed these procedures.…”