Temperature retrieval from stratospheric O3 and NO3 GOMOS data

The chemistry of some species is strongly dependent on temperature. The typical example is the nighttime NO3 chemistry. We use a simple steady state relationship for NO3 to derive temperature from measurements of O3 and NO3 by the satellite GOMOS (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars) instrument. GOMOS-retrieved temperatures are validated against ECMWF (European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecast) temperatures. The temperature between 30 and 40 km can be retrieved with a bias of 3°K and a precision of about 3°K. The small bias can easily be removed by slightly adjusting the temperature-dependency of the NO2 + O3 reaction in the steady state relationship. The results demonstrate that measurements of chemical species contain useful information on the temperature that can be extracted when the temperature-dependent chemistry is known accurately. This temperature-dependency of chemical systems could in the long term be exploited in weather data assimilation system