TROPOSPHERIC OZONE MEASURED WITH IASI

International audienceIn this paper we present tropospheric ozone column amounts (0-6 km) obtained from infrared radiances measured by the IASI instrument aboard the MetOp-A satellite using an altitude-dependent regularization method. As a first demonstration we have focused on the heat wave over Southern Europe in summer 2007 and observed very high values, in agreement with predictions from a chemical transport model of tropospheric photochemistry (CHIMERE) [1]. Our ozone product has been validated by comparing it to ozone profiles from balloon sonde measurements in the northern midlatitudes for the period from July 2007 to August 2008 [2]: A very good agreement was obtained for the scientific products but a significant bias has been identified with the operational products (v4.2). Finally, we show that the seasonal variations of ozone retrieved for different latitude bands are comparable with reference climatologies (mean and variability)