Tropospheric ozone columns retrieval from SCIAMACHY

This book provides a detailed discussion of the limb-nadir-matching technique applied to the retrieval of tropospheric ozone columns from SCIAMACHY measurements. It also describes in detail the sensitivity study, trends and validation of the SCIAMACHY tropospheric ozone column data set. The retrieval of tropospheric amounts of such species as ozone by using the limb-nadir-matching technique was one of the principal objectives of the SCIAMACHY instrument. The limb-nadir-matching technique is a residual approach that subtracts stratospheric ozone columns, retrieved from the limb observations, from the total ozone columns, derived from the nadir observations. The technique requires accurate knowledge of the stratospheric ozone column, total ozone column, tropopause height, and their associated errors. The validation of the SCIAMACHY tropospheric ozone column data set by comparison with a large suite of correlative tropospheric ozone column data sets derived from balloon-borne platforms and concurrent satellite measurements show good agreement, thus demonstrating the high quality of SCIAMACHY tropospheric ozone column data set.