Cloud Slicing: A New Technique to Derive Upper Tropospheric Ozone from Satellite Measurements

A new technique denoted cloud slicing has been developed for measuring upper tropospheric ozone. Cloud slicing takes advantage of the opaque property of water vapor clouds to ultraviolet wavelength radiation. Measurements of above-cloud column ozone from the Nimbus 7 total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) instrument are combined together with Nimbus 7 temperature humidity and infrared radiometer (THIR) cloud-top pressure data to derive ozone column amounts in the upper troposphere. In this study tropical TOMS and THIR data for the period 1979-1984 are analyzed. By combining total tropospheric column ozone (denoted TCO) measurements from the convective cloud differential (CCD) method with 100-400 hPa upper tropospheric column ozone amounts from cloud slicing, it is possible to estimate 400-1000 hPa lower tropospheric column ozone and evaluate its spatial and temporal variability. Results for both the upper and lower tropical troposphere show a year-round zonal wave number 1 pattern in column ozone with largest amounts in the Atlantic region (up to 15 DU in the 100-400 hPa pressure band and around 25-30 DU in the 400-1000 hPa pressure band). Upper tropospheric ozone derived from cloud slicing shows maximum column amounts in the Atlantic region in the June-August and September-November seasons which is similar to the seasonal variability of CCD derived TCO in the region. For the lower troposphere, largest column amounts occur in the September-November season over Brazil in South America and also southern Africa. Localized increases in the tropics in lower tropospheric ozone are found over the northern region of South America around August and off the west coast of equatorial Africa in the March-May season. Time series analysis for several regions in South America and Africa show an anomalous increase in ozone in the lower troposphere around the month of March which is not observed in the upper troposphere. The eastern Pacific indicates weak seasonal variability of upper, lower, and total tropospheric ozone compared to the western Pacific which shows largest TCO amounts in both hemispheres around spring months. Ozone variability in the western Pacific is expected to have greater variability caused by strong convection, pollution and biomass burning, land/sea contrast and monsoon developments.