Comparison of total column ozone data from ground-based MFRSR measurements taken in the southern US region with OMI satellite retrievals

A study of total column ozone (TCO) measurement data taken with a network of ground-based MultiFilter Rotating Shadowband Radiometers (MFRSR) compared with data retrieved from the satellite-based Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) shows an average positive bias of 3.04% +/- 1.7% under all sky days. The MFRSR station-to-station standard deviation was +/- 2.1%. In contrast, a recent 2-year comparison of ground-based Dobson and Brewer stations shows that OMI-TOMS TCO averages only 0.4% higher than the station average, with station-to-station standard deviation of +/- 0.6%. Annual seasonal variability in the TCO is manifested through an increase beginning in December and going through May before the levels decrease over the northern summer until reaching the lowest levels around October. In this study, positive biases were found for the 11 southern U. S. MFRSR monitoring sites after an analysis of 2 years of data from January 2006 December 2007. Overall, our comparisons show that there is good agreement between OMI-TOMS and MFRSR readings over the southern U. S. Citation: Williams, Q. L., R. S. Reddy, H. Liu, M. S. Benjamin, D. Lu, and K. M. Greene (2008), Comparison of total column ozone data from ground-based MFRSR measurements taken in the southern U. S. region with OMI satellite retrievals, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L20813, doi: 10.1029/2008GL035221.