Comparison of total column ozone obtained by the IASI-MetOp satellite with ground-based and OMI satellite observations in the southern tropics and subtropics

Abstract

Abstract. This paper presents comparison results of the total column ozone (TCO) data product over 13 southern tropical and subtropical sites recorded from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounder Interferometer (IASI) onboard the EUMETSAT (European organization for the exploitation of METeorological SATellite) MetOp (Meteorological Operational satellite program) satellite. TCO monthly averages obtained from IASI between June 2008 and December 2012 are compared with collocated TCO measurements from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on the OMI/Aura satellite and the Dobson and SAOZ (Système d'Analyse par Observation Zénithale) ground-based instruments. The results show that IASI displays a positive bias with an average less than 2 % with respect to OMI and Dobson observations, but exhibits a negative bias compared to SAOZ over Bauru with a bias around 2.63 %. There is a good agreement between IASI and the other instruments, especially from 15° S southward where a correlation coefficient higher than 0.87 is found. IASI exhibits a seasonal dependence, with an upward trend in autumn and a downward trend during spring, especially before September 2010. After September 2010, the autumn seasonal bias is considerably reduced due to changes made to the retrieval algorithm of the IASI level 2 (L2) product. The L2 product released after August (L2 O3 version 5 (v5)) matches TCO from the other instruments better compared to version 4 (v4), which was released between June 2008 and August 2010. IASI bias error recorded from September 2010 is estimated to be at 1.5 % with respect to OMI and less than ±1 % with respect to the other ground-based instruments. Thus, the improvement made by O3 L2 version 5 (v5) product compared with version 4 (v4), allows IASI TCO products to be used with confidence to study the distribution and interannual variability of total ozone in the southern tropics and subtropics.