Seasonal variations of tropical Atlantic ozone as examined by TES observations and GEOS-Chem

Biomass burning emissions from South America and Africa, lightning NOx emissions, long-range transport and deep convection play a critical role in the spatio-temporal distribution of tropical Atlantic ozone. We examine variations of the ozone and carbon monoxide distributions between September 2004 and February 2005 using vertical profile retrievals from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES). Observed variations are compared to those expected from the global 3-D tropospheric chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) and from the SHADOZ and MOZAIC in-situ measurements. Based on these comparisons, we will discuss the contribution of the different processes that control the spatio-temporal distribution of tropical Atlantic ozone.