Implications of the comparison of ozone abundances measured by the Solar Mesosphere Explorer to model calculations

Two years of ozone measurements from the Solar Mesosphere Explorer satellite are compared to the results of a model of lower mesospheric photochemistry. The measured ozone mixing ratios are larger than those predicted by the model by as much as a factor of two at pressures near 0.1 mbar and 1.3 at 1.0 mbar using currently accepted reaction rate coefficients. The model is brought into good agreement with the measurements over a wide range of latitudes and solar zenith angles only if the efficiency of the odd hydrogen catalytic cycle which destroys odd oxygen is decreased by 30-50 percent.