The Stratospheric Water and Ozone Satellite Homogenized (SWOOSH) database: A long-term database for climate studies

Abstract

Abstract. In this paper, we describe the construction of the Stratospheric Water and Ozone Satellite Homogenized (SWOOSH) database, which includes vertically resolved ozone and water vapor data from limb profiling satellite instruments operating since the 1980’s. SWOOSH includes both individual satellite source data as well as a merged data product. A key aspect of the merged product is that the source records are homogenized to account for inter-satellite biases and to minimize artificial jumps in the record. We describe the SWOOSH homogenization process, which involves adjusting the satellite data records to a “reference” satellite using coincident observations during time periods of instrument overlap. The reference satellite is chosen based on the best agreement with independent balloon-based sounding measurements, with the goal of producing a long-term data record that is both homogeneous and accurate. This paper details the choice of reference measurements, homogenization, and gridding process involved in the construction of the combined SWOOSH product, and also presents the ancillary information stored in SWOOSH that can be used in future studies of water vapor and ozone variability. Furthermore, a discussion of uncertainties in the combined SWOOSH record is presented, and examples of the SWOOSH record are provided to illustrate its use for studies of ozone and water vapor variability on interannual to decadal time scales. The version 2.5 SWOOSH data are publicly available at https://data.noaa.gov/dataset/stratospheric-water-and-ozone-satellite-homogenized-swoosh-data-set.