Round-robin evaluation of nadir ozone profile retrievals: methodology and application to MetOp-A GOME-2

Abstract

Abstract. A methodology for the round-robin evaluation and geophysical validation of ozone profile data retrieved from nadir UV backscatter satellite measurements is detailed and discussed, consisting of dataset content studies, information content studies, co-location studies, and comparisons with reference measurements. Within ESA's Climate Change Initiative on ozone (Ozone_cci project), the proposed round-robin procedure is applied to two nadir ozone profile datasets retrieved at KNMI and RAL, using their respective OPERA v1.26 and RAL v2.1 optimal estimation algorithms, from MetOp-A GOME-2 measurements taken in 2008. The ground-based comparisons use ozonesonde and lidar profiles as reference data, acquired by the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC), Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesonde programme (SHADOZ), and other stations of WMO's Global Atmosphere Watch. This direct illustration highlights practical issues that inevitably emerge from discrepancies in e.g. profile representation and vertical smoothing, for which different recipes are investigated and discussed. Several approaches for information content quantification, vertical resolution estimation, and reference profile resampling are compared and applied as well. The paper concludes with compliance estimates of the two GOME-2 ozone profile datasets with user requirements from GCOS and from climate modellers.