Height-Resolved Ozone information in the Troposphere and lower stratosphere from Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME)

Measurements by ESA's Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) contain information about the vertical profile of ozone in addition to its total column. Height-resolved ozone distributions spanning the troposphere and stratosphere between 50N and 80S have been retrieved from two orbits of data crossing the east Pacific and north America on 11th January 1996. The height vs latitude cross-section over the E.Pacific is in broad agreement with the troposphere / lower stratosphere distribution calculated for January by a zonally-averaged (2-D) chemical-transport model. A large enhancement to tropospheric ozone is detected by GOME over southern California, which we assume to be due to local photochemical production. Support for the major features seen in the two GOME cross-sections is provided by intercomparison of retrieved profiles with 19 co-located ozonesondes. The standard deviation in fractional difference is <10% in the stratosphere and <30% in the troposphere, and the bias is <5% above 6km and -25% below 6km (possibly due to cloud contamination)