Intercontinental transport of tropospheric ozone: A study of its seasonal variability across the North Atlantic utilizing tropospheric ozone residuals and its relationship to the North Atlantic Oscillation

International audienceUsing the empirically-corrected tropospheric ozone residual (TOR) technique, which utilizes coincident observations of total ozone from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and stratospheric ozone profiles from the Solar Backscattered Ultraviolet (SBUV) instruments, the seasonal and regional distribution of tropospheric ozone across the North Atlantic from 1979?2000 is examined. Its relationship to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is also analyzed as a possible transport mechanism across the North Atlantic. Monthly climatologies of tropospheric ozone for five different regions across the North Atlantic exhibit strong seasonality. The correlation between these monthly climatologies of the TOR and adjacent ozonesonde profiles in both Region 1 (eastern North America-western North Atlantic) and Region 5 (eastern North Atlantic-western Europe) are highly significant (R values of +0.98 and +0.96, respectively) and help to validate the use of satellite retrievals of tropospheric ozone. Distinct springtime interannual variability over North Atlantic Region 5 (eastern North Atlantic-western Europe) is particularly evident and exhibits similar variability to the positive phase of the NAO (R=+0.61, ? =