Insights into Tropical Tropospheric Ozone from the 1998-2000 SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes) Data Record

We describe the first overview of total, stratospheric and tropospheric ozone in the southern hemisphere tropics based on a three year, ten site record of ozone soundings from the Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes (SHADOZ) network. Observations covering 1998-2000 were made over Ascension Island; Nairobi, Kenya; Irene, South Africa; Reunion Island; Watukosek, Java; Fiji; Tahiti; American Samoa; San Cristobal, Galapagos; Natal, Brazil. The ozone data, with simultaneous temperature profiles to approximately 7 hPa and relative humidity to approximately 200 hPa, are at an archive: http://code9l6. gsfc.nasa.gov/Data_services/shadoz. Prominent features are highly variable tropospheric ozone, a zonal wave-one pattern in total (and tropospheric) column ozone, and signatures of the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO) in stratospheric ozone. Total, stratospheric and tropospheric column ozone amounts usually peak between August and November and are lowest in the first half of the year. Tropospheric ozone variability over the Indian and Pacific Ocean displays influences of the waning 1997-1998 Indian Ocean Dipole and ENSO (El Nino / Southern Oscillation), seasonal convection and pollution transport from Africa. Tropospheric ozone over the Atlantic Basin reflects regional subsidence and recirculation as well as pollution ozone from biomass burning.