On the capability of UV-VIS limb sounders to constrain modelled stratospheric ozone and its application to the ALTIUS mission

Abstract

Abstract. ALTIUS (Atmospheric Limb Tracker for the Investigation of the Upcoming Stratosphere) is the upcoming stratospheric ozone monitoring limb sounder from ESA's Earth Watch programme. Measuring in the ultraviolet-visible-near infrared spectral regions, ALTIUS will retrieve vertical profiles of ozone, aerosol extinction coefficients, nitrogen dioxide and other trace gases from the upper troposphere to the mesosphere. In order to maximize the geographical coverage, the instrument will observe limb- scattered solar light during daytime, solar occultation at the terminator and stellar/lunar/planetary occultations during nighttime. This paper evaluates the constraint of ALTIUS ozone profiles on modelled stratospheric ozone by the means of an Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE). In this effort, a reference atmosphere has been built and used to generate ALTIUS ozone profiles, along with an instrument simulator. These profiles are then assimilated to provide ozone analyses. A good agreement is found between the analyses and the reference atmosphere in the stratosphere and in the extra-tropical upper troposphere. In the tropical upper troposphere, although providing a significant weight in the analyses, the assimilation of ozone profiles does not allow to completely eliminate the bias with the reference atmosphere. The weight of the different modes of observations have also been evaluated, showing that all of them are necessary to constrain ozone during polar winters where solar/stellar occultations are the most important during the polar night and limb data are the most important during the development of the ozone hole in the polar spring.