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This study evaluated the health-related weighted ultraviolet radiation (UVR) due to the total ozone content (TOC) and the aerosol optical depth (AOD) changes. Clear-sky Ultraviolet Index (UVI), daily doses, and exposure times for erythema induction (D ery and T ery ) and vitamin D synthesis (D vitD and T vitD ) were computed by a radiative transfer estimator. TOC and AOD data were provided by six Earth System Models (ESMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). For projections, we consider four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios-SSPs (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5)-and two time-slices (near: 2041-2060 and far future: 2081-2100). UVR projections showed pronounced changes for the summer hemispheres in the far future. TOC increases in mid- and high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere caused decreases in UVR at the summer solstice. However, projections did not indicate sun-safe exposure conditions in South America, Australia, and Southern Africa. On the contrary, exposure around solar noon from 10 to 20 min will still be sufficient to induce erythema in skin type III individuals throughout this century. In southern Argentina and Chile, the UVR insufficiency for vitamin D synthesis at solar noon in skin type III remains the same during this century at the winter solstice. In the Northern Hemisphere, UVI and D ery at the summer solstice should remain high (UVI ≥ 8; D ery  ~ 7.0 kJ m -2 ) in highly populated locations. Above 45 °N, UVR levels cannot be enough to synthesize vitamin D in skin type III during the boreal winter. Our results show that climate change will affect human health through excess or lack of solar UVR availability., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to the European Photochemistry Association, European Society for Photobiology.)

Recent studies show that the ozone layer will recover by the middle part of this century. This is a significant result arising from the Montreal Protocol, and highlights the success of this environmental protection agreement. Climate change projections show that Total Ozone Content (TOC) levels will increase significantly by the end of this century, mainly at higher latitudes. This increase may result in a reduction of the adverse effects of UV radiation overexposure. By contrast, reduced UV radiation levels at the surface of the Earth can result in reduced levels of vitamin D synthesis among the inhabitants of these regions. In this study we provide estimates for the UVI, erythemal, and vitamin-D weighted daily doses for ten different locations in South America and Antarctica. Our calculations were based on ozone projections provided by climate models set forth in the last IPCC report. Results show that the increase of TOC levels in middle and high latitude regions may result in decreased UVI and UV doses throughout the century. In high latitudes, erythemal doses and vitamin D synthesis doses may be reduced by up to 22 and 39%, respectively, if anthropogenic emissions continue to rise throughout the century. Furthermore, there may be reductions of up to 9 and 12%, respectively, in mid-latitudes (20°S to 35°S). Significant variations at Equatorial sites were not observed. In most of South America, the attenuation in UVR caused by increases in TOC during the 21 st century is neither enough to promote protective effects from this radiation, nor for the lack of UVR for vitamin D synthesis. The incidence of UVR in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the continent will continue to be a public health risk for the entire 21 st century during all seasons, regardless of the climatic scenarios. Our results can be used as an important tool for health studies focusing on the excess and/or lack of sun exposure.

The use of assimilation tools for satellite validation requires true estimates of the accuracy of the reference data. Since its inception, the Network for Detection of Stratospheric Change (NDSC) has provided systematic lidar measurements of ozone and temperature at several places around the world that are well adapted for satellite validations. Regular exercises have been organised to ensure the data quality at each individual site. These exercises can be separated into three categories: large scale intercomparisons using multiple instruments, including a mobile lidar; using satellite observations as a geographic transfer standards to compare measurements at different sites; and comparative investigations of the analysis software. NDSC is a research network, so each system has its own history, design, and analysis, and has participated differently in validation campaigns. There are still some technological differences that may explain different accuracies. However, the comparison campaigns performed over the last decade have always proved to be very helpful in improving the measurements. To date, more efforts have been devoted to characterising ozone measurements than to temperature observations. The synthesis of the published works shows that the network can potentially be considered as homogeneous within +/-2% between 20-35 km for ozone and +/-1 K between 35-60 km for temperature. Outside this altitude range, larger biases are reported and more efforts are required. In the lower stratosphere, Raman channels seem to improve comparisons but such capabilities were not systematically compared. At the top of the profiles, more investigations on analysis methodologies are still probably needed. SAGE II and GOMOS appear to be excellent tools for future ozone lidar validations but need to be better coordinated and take more advantage of assimilation tools. Also, temperature validations face major difficulties caused by atmospheric tides and therefore require intercomparisons with the mobile systems, at all sites.

Long term stratospheric DIAL (Differential Absorption Lidar) ozone lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) measurements have been performed at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) since 1985 and as part of the Network for the Detection of Stratospheric Changes (NDSC) since 1991. This paper provides a detailed description of the DIAL lidar instrument implemented at OHP and a discussion of the ozone retrieval analysis. The instrument includes the detection of atmospheric nitrogen Raman scattering wavelengths, which is required for ozone measurements in the presence of strong volcanic aerosol loading. A comprehensive evaluation of the error budget in the 10-50 km altitude range is performed with particular emphasis on the bias associated with background and volcanic stratospheric aerosol. This bias is evaluated using ancillary measurements of the aerosol size distribution obtained from 1991 to 1999 after the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption. Results show that the bias associated with background aerosols is smaller than 1% above 13 km while the bias due to volcanic aerosols reaches a maximum of 5% above 15 km in the DIAL Raman ozone retrieval. In background aerosol conditions the total accuracy of the DIAL ozone vertical distribution at OHP ranges from 5% below 20 km to 15-30% above 45 km with a vertical resolution varying from 0.5 km to 5 km.

A detailed analysis of the polar ozone loss processes during 10 recent Antarctic winters is presented with high-resolution MIMOSA-CHIM (Modèle Isentrope du transport Méso-échelle de l'Ozone Stratosphérique par Advection avec CHIMie) model simulations and high-frequency polar vortex observations from the Aura microwave limb sounder (MLS) instrument. The high-frequency measurements and simulations help to characterize the winters and assist the interpretation of interannual variability better than either data or simulations alone. Our model results for the Antarctic winters of 2004-2013 show that chemical ozone loss starts in the edge region of the vortex at equivalent latitudes (EqLs) of 65-67° S in mid-June-July. The loss progresses with time at higher EqLs and intensifies during August-September over the range 400-600 K. The loss peaks in late September-early October, when all EqLs (65-83° S) show a similar loss and the maximum loss (> 2 ppmv - parts per million by volume) is found over a broad vertical range of 475-550 K. In the lower stratosphere, most winters show similar ozone loss and production rates. In general, at 500 K, the loss rates are about 2-3 ppbv sh-1 (parts per billion by volume per sunlit hour) in July and 4-5 ppbv sh-1 in August-mid-September, while they drop rapidly to 0 by mid-October. In the middle stratosphere, the loss rates are about 3-5 ppbv sh-1 in July-August and October at 675 K. On average, the MIMOSA-CHIM simulations show that the very cold winters of 2005 and 2006 exhibit a maximum loss of ~ 3.5 ppmv around 550 K or about 149-173 DU over 350-850 K, and the warmer winters of 2004, 2010, and 2012 show a loss of ~ 2.6 ppmv around 475-500 K or 131-154 DU over 350-850 K. The winters of 2007, 2008, and 2011 were moderately cold, and thus both ozone loss and peak loss altitudes are between these two ranges (3 ppmv around 500 K or 150 ± 10 DU). The modeled ozone loss values are in reasonably good agreement with those estimated from Aura MLS measurements, but the model underestimates the observed ClO, largely due to the slower vertical descent in the model during spring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A methodology for the round-robin evaluation and the geophysical validation of ozone profile data retrieved from nadir UV backscatter satellite measurements is detailed and discussed, consisting of data set content studies, information content studies, co-location studies, and comparisons with reference measurements. Within the European Space Agency's Climate Change Initiative on ozone (Ozone_cci project), the proposed round-robin procedure is applied to two nadir ozone profile data sets retrieved at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL, United Kingdom), using their respective OPERA v1.26 and RAL v2.1 optimal estimation algorithms, from MetOp-A GOME-2 (i.e. the second generation Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment on the first Meteorological Operational Satellite) measurements taken in 2008. The ground-based comparisons use ozonesonde and lidar profiles as reference data, acquired by the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC), Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesonde programme (SHADOZ), and other stations of theWorld Meteorological Organisation's Global Atmosphere Watch (WMO GAW). This direct illustration highlights practical issues that inevitably emerge from discrepancies in e.g. profile representation and vertical smoothing, for which different recipes are investigated and discussed. Several approaches for information content quantification, vertical resolution estimation, and reference profile resampling are compared and applied as well. The paper concludes with compliance estimates of the two GOME-2 ozone profile data sets with user requirements from the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and from climate modellers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional validation of atmospheric profiles is based on the intercomparison of two or more data sets in predefined ranges or classes of a given observational characteristic such as latitude or solar zenith angle. In this study we trained a self-organising map (SOM) with a full time series of relative difference profiles of SCIAMACHY limb v5.02 and lidar ozone profiles from seven observation sites. Each individual observation characteristic was then mapped to the obtained SOM to investigate to which degree variation in this characteristic is explanatory for the variation seen in the SOM map. For the studied data sets, altitude-dependent relations for the global data set were found between the difference profiles and studied variables. From the lowest altitude studied (18 km) ascending, the most influencing factors were found to be longitude, followed by solar zenith angle and latitude, sensor age and again solar zenith angle together with the day of the year at the highest altitudes studied here (up to 45 km). After accounting for both latitude and longitude, residual partial correlations with a reduced magnitude are seen for various factors. However, (partial) correlations cannot point out which (combination) of the factors drives the observed differences between the ground-based and satellite ozone profiles as most of the factors are inter-related. Clustering into three classes showed that there are also some local dependencies, with for instance one cluster having a much stronger correlation with the sensor age (days since launch) between 36 and 42 km. The proposed SOM-based approach provides a powerful tool for the exploration of differences between data sets without being limited to a priori defined data subsets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The passive tracer method is used to estimate ozone loss from ground-based measurements in the Antarctic. A sensitivity study shows that the ozone depletion can be estimated within an accuracy of ~4%. The method is then applied to the ground-based observations from Arrival Heights, Belgrano, Concordia, Dumont d'Urville, Faraday, Halley, Marambio, Neumayer, Rothera, South Pole, Syowa, and Zhongshan for the diagnosis of ozone loss in the Antarctic. On average, the ten-day boxcar average of the vortex mean ozone column loss deduced from the groundbased stations was about 55±5% in 2005-2009. The ozone loss computed from the ground-based measurements is in very good agreement with those derived from satellite measurements (OMI and SCIAMACHY) and model simulations (REPROBUS and SLIMCAT), where the differences are within ±3-5%. The historical ground-based total ozone observations in October show that the depletion started in the late 1970s, reached a maximum in the early 1990s and stabilised afterwards due to saturation. There is no indication of ozone recovery yet. At southern mid-latitudes, a reduction of 20- 50% is observed for a few days in October-November at the newly installed Rio Gallegos station. Similar depletion of ozone is also observed episodically during the vortex overpasses at Kerguelen in October-November and at Macquarie Island in July-August of the recent winters. This illustrates the significance of measurements at the edges of Antarctica. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Satellite sensors provide global measurements of ozone concentration that can be used to study the effects of the implementation of the Montreal Protocol. However, a key issue in deriving long-term ozone trends from successive satellite instruments is inter-comparability. Ground-based measurements offer continuous time series, but only at a few locations. The combination of ground-based measurements with satellite data is therefore an effective means to evaluate satellite instrument inter-comparability. In this study, we present validation results of ozone profiles from three atmospheric sensors onboard ENVISAT by comparison with lidar measurements. Results for the SCIAMACHY ozone profiles (version 3.01) show reasonable agreement with ground-based measurements (0 to -20%). The MIPAS full-resolution (version 4.61) dataset has good agreement with lidar (0 to 10%), whereas a small positive bias (up to 20%) was found for the MIPAS reduced-resolution prototype data. GOMOS dark-limb data (version 5.00) agree very well (0 ± 5%) with the correlative data, but underestimate ozone concentration at the polar regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upper stratospheric ozone anomalies from the satellite-borne Solar Backscatter Ultra-Violet (SBUV), Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment II (SAGE II), Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE), Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars (GOMOS), and Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY) instruments agree within 5% or better with ground-based data from lidars and microwave radiometers at five stations of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC), from 45°S to 48°N. From 1979 until the late 1990s, all available data show a clear decline of ozone near 40 km, by 10%-15%. This decline has not continued in the last 10 years. At some sites, ozone at 40 km appears to have increased since 2000, consistent with the beginning decline of stratospheric chlorine. The phaseout of chlorofluorocarbons after the International Montreal Protocol in 1987 has been successful, and is now showing positive effects on ozone in the upper stratosphere. Temperature anomalies near 40 km altitude from European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast reanalyses (ERA-40), from National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) operational analyses, and from HALOE and lidar measurements show good consistency at the five stations, within about 3 K. Since about 1985, upper stratospheric temperatures have been fluctuating around a constant level at all five NDACC stations. This non-decline of upper stratospheric temperatures is a significant change from the more or less linear cooling of the upper stratosphere up until the mid-1990s, reported in previous trend assessments. It is also at odds with the almost linear 1 K per decade cooling simulated over the entire 1979-2010 period by chemistry-climate models (CCMs). The same CCM simulations, however, track the historical ozone anomalies quite well, including the change of ozone tendency in the late 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS), on-board the European ENVIronmental SATellite (ENVISAT) launched on 1 March 2002, is a middle infrared Fourier Transform spectrometer measuring the atmospheric emission spectrum in limb sounding geometry. The instrument is capable to retrieve the vertical distribution of temperature and trace gases, aiming at the study of climate and atmospheric chemistry and dynamics, and at applications to data assimilation and weather forecasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is devoted to an intercomparison of ozone vertical profiles retrieved from the measurements of scattered solar radiation performed by the SCIAMACHY instrument in the limb viewing geometry. Three different inversion algorithms including the prototype of the operational Level 1 to 2 processor to be operated by the European Space Agency are considered. Unlike usual validation studies, this comparison removes the uncertainties arising when comparing measurements made by different instruments probing slightly different air masses and focuses on the uncertainties specific to the modeling-retrieval problem only. The intercomparison was performed for 5 selected orbits of SCIAMACHY showing a good overall agreement of the results in the middle stratosphere, whereas considerable discrepancies were identified in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere altitude region. Additionally, comparisons with ground-based lidar measurements are shown for selected profiles demonstrating an overall correctness of the retrievals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Ozone profiles retrieved from Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME, flying on ERS-2 satellite) spectra from July 1995 to June 2003 by means of 2 independent neural network (NN) schemes have been validated with ozone lidar measurements performed at different stations belonging to the network for the detection of atmospheric composition changes (NDACC). The retrieval and the whole validation have been carried out by using the performances and resources of the European project Enabling Grid for E-sciencE (EGEE) and of a local Grid at the European Space Research Institute of the European Space Agency (ESRIN/ESA). Roughly 1800 collocated profiles have been found, in tropical, mid-latitude and high-latitude regions; for each lidar station the differences between GOME and lidar profiles have been evaluated and the global performance of the proposed NN approaches has been critically discussed. The results indicate the potentialities for obtaining reliable ozone field analysis on global scale, including detailed altitude resolved trend analysis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Dimensionality reduction can be of crucial importance in the application of inversion schemes to atmospheric remote sensing data. In this study the problem of dimensionality reduction in the retrieval of ozone concentration profiles from the radiance measurements provided by the instrument Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) on board of ESA satellite ERS-2 is considered. By means of radiative transfer modelling, neural networks and pruning algorithms, a complete procedure has been designed to extract the GOME spectral ranges most crucial for the inversion. The quality of the resulting retrieval algorithm has been evaluated by comparing its performance to that yielded by other schemes and co-located profiles obtained with lidar measurements. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Solar erythemal UV radiation incident on Argentina from tropical to high latitude regions has been measured with ground-based instruments as well as with the TOMS instrument on board of the NASA Earth-Probe satellite. These data permit validation of the UV index, a measure of solar risk to UV exposure, forecasted daily by CONAE (Argentina National Commission on Space Activities) and the Argentine National Weather Service. Model calculations of this index are also presented. In addition, we analyzed the UV effects from the Antarctic ozone hole passing over the continental part of the country using TOMS data corrected by a factor derived from the intercomparison of TOMS satellite data with those determined with Southern Hemisphere ground-based spectroradiometers. In this way, we obtained a rather comprehensive description of the amount of erythemal UV radiation and consequently of the UV index for the entire country, as well as the ozone total column and profile (the latter one at Buenos Aires). The results presented in this work were determined through collaboration between the following institutions: GSFC/NASA in USA, Institute Pierre Simon Laplace in France, University of Innsbruck in Austria and CEILAP, IFIR, CONAE, SMN, Universities of Rosario and San Luis in Argentina. The need to use erythemal irradiance and ozone results in Argentina, one of the most exposed regions of the Southern Hemisphere to study the effects of ozone depletion and consequently UV detrimental effects, has been partially covered in the framework of this North–South collaboration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]