TOTOZUVAZORES

 

Total Ozone and UV Monitoring in Azores

1 July 2017 - 30 June 2018

Lead Scientist: Diamantino Henriques

Observatory: ena, ena

As a climate gas, atmospheric ozone has a relevant role on the radiative transfer and in the energy balance between the stratosphere and the troposphere. Accurate ground-based ozone and ultraviolet (UV) data will contribute to reduce the uncertainties in satellite data and in radiative transfer models, which will help improve climate and earth system models, and provide high quality data for ARM mission.

Brewer spectrophotometers has been used worldwide for monitoring total ozone and ultraviolet radiation during more than 30 years. Brewer data have been used to validate satellite derived products. However, there are few ground-based ozone stations over large regions, like oceans, and therefore, oceanic ground-based stations are very important for the spatial representativeness of the satellite data.

Aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements were collected in the ultraviolet (UV) range by a Brewer spectrometer to complement those collected by the sun photometer at the ARM Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) observatory. Total ozone, sulfur dioxide (SO2) and AOD and UV measurements should be also useful for validation of radiative transfer models and for a better understanding of the optical characteristics of the marine environment, in the scope of the ARM mission.

Therefore, the ENA observatory provides unique conditions to: • Evaluate and compare direct sun and cloudy sky measurements of total ozone and SO2; • Compare it with satellite products over the East North Atlantic region; • Evaluate and compare direct sun measurements of UV aerosol optical depth measurements with sun photometers and satellite data over the East North Atlantic region; • Evaluate and compare global UV irradiances with satellite products; • Validate radiative transfer models in UV range.

Measurement program will include: • Near hourly direct sun and cloudy sky measurements of total ozone, SO2 and AOD. • Near hourly global UV sky spectral irradiances (290-325 nanometers). Results will be analysed and compared with co-located satellite data.

The ENA ozone and UV station will provide unique data for a large area over North Atlantic that can be used for UV radiation exposure studies on maritime environments.

Co-Investigators

Linda Moniz

Timeline