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Contribution of TOMS to Earth Science- An OverviewThe TOMS instrument was launched on the Nimbus-7 satellite in Oct 1978 with the goal of understanding the meteorological influences on the ozone column. The nominal lifetime of the instrument was 1 year. However, in response to the concern over possible man-made influences on the ozone layer NASA continued to nurse the instrument for 13.5 years and launched a major program to produce accurate trend quality dataset of ozone. Despite severe optical degradation and other significant anomalies that developed in the instrument over its lifetime, the effort turned out to be a tremendous success. In 1984, TOMS took center stage as the primary provider of Antarctic ozone hole maps to the world community; it continues to play that role until today. An unexpected benefit of the close attention paid to improving the TOMS data quality was that several atmospheric constituents that interfere with ozone measurement were also identified and meticulously converted into long-term datasets of their own. These constituents include clouds, volcanic S02, aerosols, and ocean phytoplankton. In addition, the high quality of the basic datasets made it possible to produce global maps of surface UV and tropospheric ozone. In most cases there are no other sources of these data sets. Advanced UV instruments currently under development in the US and Europe will continue to exploit the TOMS-developed techniques for several decades.
Document ID
20040077045
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Bhartia, P. K.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 21, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2004
Subject Category
Earth Resources And Remote Sensing
Meeting Information
Meeting: Fall AGU 2003 Meeting
Location: San Fransico, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: December 8, 2003
End Date: December 12, 2003
Sponsors: American Geophysical Union
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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