An Ozone Profile Climatology based on Ozone-sondes and AURA MLS Data with Added Profiles for Ozone Hole Conditions and Wave One Parameterization for Tropical Tropospheric Ozone.

An updated ozone profile climatology has been created for use in satellite and/or ground based ozone retrievals. This climatology was formed by combining 12 years of data from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) with data from balloon sondes. The MLS instrument on Aura has excellent latitude coverage and measures ozone daily from the upper troposphere to the lower mesosphere at 3.5 km resolution. This climatology consists of monthly average ozone profiles for ten degree latitude zones covering pressure altitudes (Z* pressure altitude coordinates) from 0 to 65 km. Ozone below 8 km (below 13 km at tropical latitudes) is based on ozonesondes, while ozone above 16 km (21 km at tropical latitudes) is based on MLS measurements. Sonde and MLS (V4.2) data are blended in the transition region. This climatology features two distinct profiles for the southern hemisphere (60-90S) from August to December. The profiles labeled "Hole" correspond to measurements taken inside the polar vortex while the profiles in the file labeled "No Hole" are averages taken from measurements outside the vortex. The filtering criteria for determining a profile inside/outside the vortex was done by analyzing the 50hPa ozone values. The 50hPa values are where the chemical depletion process is greatest and thus are a good indicator of the vortex boundary. We also include a representation of the observed zonal wave one tropospheric ozone feature in the tropics. Because ozonesonde stations are sparse in this region, we derive the tropospheric column ozone residual by subtracting the MLS stratospheric column from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) total column. We then combine the result with ozonesonde data. A function is fitted to the data in several dimensions to better depict the climatology of both the tropospheric column and vertical distribution of tropospheric ozone in the tropics.