Long-term changes in the total ozone mapping spectrometer relative to world primary standard Dobson spectrometer 83

Journal Article · Wed Feb 20 04:00:00 EST 1991 · Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/90JD02091· OSTI ID:5560751

McPeters, R D ^[1]; Komhyr, W D ^[2]

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1. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (USA)
2. NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Lab., Boulder, CO (USA)

The authors have examined the stability of the calibration of the Nimbus 7 solar backscatter ultraviolet (SBUV) and total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) instruments by comparing their ozone measurements with those made by a single, very stable Dobson instrument: the world primary standard Dobson spectrometer number 83. Measurements of ozone made with instrument 83 at Mauna Loa observatory in eight summers between 1979 and 1989 were compared with coincident TOMS ozone measurements. The comparison shows that relative to instrument 83, ozone measured by TOMS (and SBUV) was stable between 1979 and approximately 1983, had decreased by 3% by 1986, and had decreased by almost 7% by 1989. A similar time dependence is seen when data from an ensemble of 39 Dobson stations throughout the world is compared with TOMS over the period 1979-1987. The most likely reason for the relative drift is that the diffuser plate used by both SBUV and TOMS to measure solar flux has suffered an uncorrected wavelength dependent degradation, with most of the degradation occurring after 1983. The recently released version 6 TOMS data, corrected using the internal pair justification technique, show almost no drift relative to Dobson instrument 83. The authors conclude from these comparisons that accurate measurements of long-term global ozone change will require a coherent system incorporating both ground based and satellite based ozone measurements.

• OSTI ID: 5560751
• Journal Information: Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States), Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States) Vol. 96:D2; ISSN 0148-0227; ISSN JGREA
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540110*
ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY
CALIBRATION
CHEMISTRY
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ERRORS
FEDERAL REGION IX
GLOBAL ASPECTS
HAWAII
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
NORTH AMERICA
OZONE
RADIATIONS
SATELLITES
SOLAR FLUX
SPECTROMETERS
STABILITY
STANDARDS
TIME DEPENDENCE
ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION
USA