Intercomparison of ozone profile measurements from ASUR, SCIAMACHY, MIPAS, OSIRIS, and SMR

International audienceThe airborne submillimeter radiometer (ASUR) was deployed onboard the Falcon research aircraft during the scanning imaging absorption spectrometer for atmospheric cartography (SCIAMACHY) validation and utilization experiment (SCIAVALUE) and the European polar stratospheric cloud and lee wave experiment (EuPLEx) campaigns. A large number of ozone profile measurements were performed over a latitude band spanning from 5°S to 80°N in September 2002 and February/March 2003 during the SCIAVALUE and around the northern polar latitudes in January/February 2003 during the EuPLEx. Both missions amassed an ample microwave ozone profile data set that is used to make quantitative comparisons with satellite measurements in order to assess the quality of the satellite retrievals. In this paper, the ASUR ozone profile measurements are compared with measurements from SCIAMACHY and Michelson interferometer for passive atmospheric sounding (MIPAS) on Environmental Satellite and optical spectrograph and infrared imager system (OSIRIS) and submillimeter radiometer (SMR) on the Odin satellite. The cross comparisons with the criterion that the ASUR measurements are performed within ±1000 km and ±6 hrs of the satellite observations show a good agreement with all the four satellite sensors. The differences in data values are the following: −4 to +8% for ASUR-SCIAMACHY (operational product, v2.1), within ±15% for ASUR-SCIAMACHY (scientific product, v1.62), up to +6% for ASUR-MIPAS (operational product v4.61) and ASUR-MIPAS (scientific product v1-O3-1), up to 17% for ASUR-OSIRIS (v012), and −6 to 17% for ASUR-SMR (v222) between the 20- and 40-km altitude range depending on latitude. Thus, the intercomparisons provide important quantitative information about the quality of the satellite ozone profiles, which has to be considered when using the data for scientific analyses