A re-evaluated Canadian ozonesonde record: measurements of the vertical distribution of ozone over Canada from 1966 to 2013

Abstract

Abstract. In Canada routine ozone soundings have been carried at Resolute Bay since 1966, making this record the longest in the world. Similar measurements started in the 1970s at three other sites, and the network was expanded in stages to 10 sites by 2003. This important record for understanding long-term changes in tropospheric and stratospheric ozone has been re-evaluated as part of the SPARC/IO3C/IGACO-O3/NDACC (SI2N) initiative. The Brewer–Mast sonde, used in the Canadian network until 1980, is different in construction from the ECC sonde, and the ECC sonde itself has also undergone a variety of minor design changes over the period 1980–2013. Corrections have been made for the estimated effects of these changes, to produce a more homogeneous dataset. The effect of the corrections is generally modest, and so should not invalidate past analyses that have used Canadian network data. However, the overall result is entirely positive: the comparison with co-located total ozone spectrometers is improved, in terms of both bias and SD, and trends in the bias have been reduced or eliminated. An uncertainty analysis (including the additional uncertainty from the corrections, where appropriate) has also been conducted, and the altitude-dependent estimated uncertainty is included with each revised profile. The resulting time series show negative trends in the lower stratosphere of up to 5% decade−1 for the period 1966–2013. Most of this decline occurred before 1997, and linear trends for the more recent period are generally not significant. The time series also show large variations from year to year. Some of these anomalies can be related to cold winters (in the Arctic stratosphere), or changes in the Brewer–Dobson circulation, which may thereby be influencing trends. In the troposphere trends for the 48 year period are small, and for the most part not significant. This suggests that ozone levels in the free troposphere over Canada have not changed significantly in nearly 50 years.