IONS-2004 (INTEX Ozonesonde Network Study) Ozone Budgets: Experimental Determination and Comparison With Climatology

The IONS (INTEX Ozonesonde Network Study; <http://croc.gsfc.nasa.gov/intex/ions.html>) coordinated launches in July-August 2004 during ICARTT/ INTEX/NEAQS (International Consortium on Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation)/ Intercontinental Transport Experiment/New England Air Quality Study provided over 290 ozone profiles from eleven North American sites and the R/V R H Brown in the Gulf of Maine. Wave analyses (method after Pierce and Grant [1998]), tracers (potential vorticity, water vapor) and trajectories are used to determine ozone contributions from: regional pollution coupled with convection, lightning, advection, boundary layer production, stratosphere. Soundings from northeast North America (NENA) show relatively high stratospheric influence due to a persistence of low pressure over the region. A long-time Wallops Island sonde record and MOZAIC ozone profiles (1995-2004) put the IONS record in perspective. We find June-July-August 2004 to be a 10-year record, with Wallops showing a low frequency of boundary layer ozone pollution events. Although the stratospheric ozone influence is pronounced, the "spring in summer" nature of the mid- and upper troposphere in NENA IONS may not be unusual. With dense temporal coverage, the IONS profiles provide invaluable statistics for evaluation of air quality models in July-August 2004.