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Trends in stratospheric trace gases like HCl, N2O, O3, and NOy show a hemispheric asymmetry over the last 2 decades, with trends having opposing signs in the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere. Here we use N2O, a long-lived tracer with a tropospheric source, as a proxy for stratospheric circulation in the multiple linear regression model used to calculate stratospheric trace gas trends. This is done in an effort to isolate trends due to circulation changes from trends due to the chemical effects of ozone-depleting substances. Measurements from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) and the Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imager System (OSIRIS) are considered, along with model results from the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). Trends in HCl, O3, and NOy for 2004–2018 are examined. Using the N2O regression proxy, we show that observed HCl increases in the Northern Hemisphere are due to changes in the stratospheric circulation. We also show that negative O3 trends above 30 hPa in the Northern Hemisphere can be explained by a change in the circulation but that negative ozone trends at lower levels cannot. Trends in stratospheric NOy are found to be largely consistent with trends in N2O.

This study presents upper troposphere–lower stratosphere (UTLS) water vapour and ozone climatologies generated from 14 years (June 2004 to May 2018) of measurements made by three Canadian limb-viewing satellite instruments: the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS), the Measurement of Aerosol Extinction in the Stratosphere and Troposphere Retrieved by Occultation (MAESTRO), and the Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imaging System (OSIRIS; ozone only). This selection of instruments was chosen to explore the capability of these Canadian instruments in representing the UTLS and to enable analysis of the impact of different measurement sampling patterns. The water vapour and ozone climatologies have been constructed using tropopause-relative potential temperature and equivalent-latitude coordinates in an effort to best represent the distribution of these two gases in the UTLS, which is characterized by a high degree of dynamic and geophysical variability. Zonal-mean multiyear-mean climatologies are provided with 5∘ equivalent latitude and 10 K potential temperature spacing and have been constructed on a monthly, seasonal (3-month), and yearly basis. These climatologies are examined in-depth for two 3-month periods, December–January–February and June–July–August, and are compared to reference climatologies constructed from the Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model 39-year specified dynamics (CMAM39-SD) run, subsampled to the times and locations of the satellite measurements, in order to evaluate the consistency of water vapour and ozone between the datasets. Specifically, this method of using a subsampled model addresses the impact of each instrument's measuring pattern and allows for the quantification of the influence of different measurement patterns on multiyear climatologies. This in turn permits a more consistent evaluation of the distributions of these two gas species, as assessed through the differences between the model and measurement climatologies. For water vapour, the average absolute relative difference between CMAM39-SD and ACE-FTS differed between the two versions of ACE-FTS by less than 8 %, while the MAESTRO climatologies were found to differ by 15 %–41 % from ACE-FTS, depending on the version of ACE-FTS and the season. When considering the ozone climatologies, those constructed from the two ACE-FTS versions agreed to within 2 % overall, and the OSIRIS ozone climatologies agreed with these to within 10 %. The MAESTRO ozone climatologies differ from those from ACE-FTS and OSIRIS by 30 %–35 % and 25 %, respectively, albeit with regions of better agreement within the UTLS. These findings indicate that this set of Canadian limb sounders yields generally similar water vapour and ozone distributions in the UTLS, with some exceptions for MAESTRO depending on the season and gas species.

After decades of depletion in the 20th century, near-global ozone now shows clear signs of recovery in the upper stratosphere. The ozone column, however, has remained largely constant since the turn of the century, mainly due to the evolution of lower stratospheric ozone. In the tropical lower stratosphere, ozone is expected to decrease as a consequence of enhanced upwelling driven by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, and this is consistent with observations. There is recent evidence, however, that mid-latitude ozone continues to decrease as well, contrary to model predictions. These changes are likely related to dynamical variability, but the impact of changing circulation patterns on stratospheric ozone is not well understood. Here we use merged measurements from the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment II (SAGE II), the Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imaging System (OSIRIS), and SAGE III on the International Space Station (SAGE III/ISS) to quantify ozone trends in the 2000–2021 period. We implement a sampling correction for the OSIRIS and SAGE III/ISS datasets and assess trend significance, taking into account the temporal differences with respect to Aura Microwave Limb Sounder data. We show that ozone has increased by 2 %–6 % in the upper and 1 %–3 % in the middle stratosphere since 2000, while lower stratospheric ozone has decreased by similar amounts. These decreases are significant in the tropics (>95 % confidence) but not necessarily at mid-latitudes (>80 % confidence). In the upper and middle stratosphere, changes since 2010 have pointed to hemispheric asymmetries in ozone recovery. Significant positive trends are present in the Southern Hemisphere, while ozone at northern mid-latitudes has remained largely unchanged in the last decade. These differences might be related to asymmetries and long-term variability in the Brewer–Dobson circulation. Circulation changes impact ozone in the lower stratosphere even more. In tropopause-relative coordinates, most of the negative trends in the tropics lose significance, highlighting the impacts of a warming troposphere and increasing tropopause altitudes.

In this paper, we present the MErged GRIdded Dataset of Ozone Profiles (MEGRIDOP) in the stratosphere with a resolved longitudinal structure, which is derived from data from six limb and occultation satellite instruments: GOMOS, SCIAMACHY and MIPAS on Envisat, OSIRIS on Odin, OMPS on Suomi-NPP, and MLS on Aura. The merged dataset was generated as a contribution to the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative Ozone project (Ozone_cci). The period of this merged time series of ozone profiles is from late 2001 until the end of 2018. The monthly mean gridded ozone profile dataset is provided in the altitude range from 10 to 50 km in bins of 10∘ latitude × 20∘ longitude. The merging is performed using deseasonalized anomalies. The created MEGRIDOP dataset can be used for analyses that probe our understanding of stratospheric chemistry and dynamics. To illustrate some possible applications, we created a climatology of ozone profiles with resolved longitudinal structure. We found zonal asymmetry in the climatological ozone profiles at middle and high latitudes associated with the polar vortex. At northern high latitudes, the amplitude of the seasonal cycle also has a longitudinal dependence. The MEGRIDOP dataset has also been used to evaluate regional vertically resolved ozone trends in the stratosphere, including the polar regions. It is found that stratospheric ozone trends exhibit longitudinal structures at Northern Hemisphere middle and high latitudes, with enhanced trends over Scandinavia and the Atlantic region. This agrees well with previous analyses and might be due to changes in dynamical processes related to the Brewer–Dobson circulation.

In this work, we analyze the seasonal dependence of ozone trends in the stratosphere using four long-term merged data sets, SAGE-CCI-OMPS, SAGE-OSIRIS-OMPS, GOZCARDS, and SWOOSH, which provide more than 30 years of monthly zonal mean ozone profiles in the stratosphere. We focus here on trends between 2000 and 2018. All data sets show similar results, although some discrepancies are observed. In the upper stratosphere, the trends are positive throughout all seasons and the majority of latitudes. The largest upper-stratospheric ozone trends are observed during local winter (up to 6 % per decade) and equinox (up to 3 % per decade) at mid-latitudes. In the equatorial region, we find a very strong seasonal dependence of ozone trends at all altitudes: the trends vary from positive to negative, with the sign of transition depending on altitude and season. The trends are negative in the upper-stratospheric winter (−1 % per decade to −2 % per decade) and in the lower-stratospheric spring (−2 % per decade to −4 % per decade), but positive (2 % per decade to 3 % per decade) at 30–35 km in spring, while the opposite pattern is observed in summer. The tropical trends below 25 km are negative and maximize during summer (up to −2 % per decade) and spring (up to −3 % per decade). In the lower mid-latitude stratosphere, our analysis points to a hemispheric asymmetry: during local summers and equinoxes, positive trends are observed in the south (+1 % per decade to +2 % per decade), while negative trends are observed in the north (−1 % per decade to −2 % per decade). We compare the seasonal dependence of ozone trends with available analyses of the seasonal dependence of stratospheric temperature trends. We find that ozone and temperature trends show positive correlation in the dynamically controlled lower stratosphere and negative correlation above 30 km, where photochemistry dominates. Seasonal trend analysis gives information beyond that contained in annual mean trends, which can be helpful in order to better understand the role of dynamical variability in short-term trends and future ozone recovery predictions.

Isentropic mixing across and above the subtropical jet is a significant mechanism for stratosphere–troposphere exchange. In this work, we show new observational evidence on the role of this process in moistening the lowermost stratosphere. The new measurement, obtained from the Spatial Heterodyne Observations of Water (SHOW) instrument during a demonstration flight on the NASA's ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft, captured an event of poleward water vapour transport, including a fine-scale (vertically <∼1 km) moist filament above the local tropopause in a high-spatial-resolution two-dimensional cross section of the water vapour distribution. Analysis of these measurements combined with ERA5 reanalysis data reveals that this poleward mixing of air with enhanced water vapour occurred in the region of a double tropopause following a large Rossby wave-breaking event. These new observations highlight the importance of high-resolution measurements in resolving processes that are important to the lowermost-stratosphere water vapour budget.

Ozone forms in the Earth's atmosphere from the photodissociation of molecular oxygen, primarily in the tropical stratosphere. It is then transported to the extratropics by the Brewer–Dobson circulation (BDC), forming a protective ozone layer around the globe. Human emissions of halogen-containing ozone-depleting substances (hODSs) led to a decline in stratospheric ozone until they were banned by the Montreal Protocol, and since 1998 ozone in the upper stratosphere is rising again, likely the recovery from halogen-induced losses. Total column measurements of ozone between the Earth's surface and the top of the atmosphere indicate that the ozone layer has stopped declining across the globe, but no clear increase has been observed at latitudes between 60° S and 60° N outside the polar regions (60–90°). Here we report evidence from multiple satellite measurements that ozone in the lower stratosphere between 60° S and 60° N has indeed continued to decline since 1998. We find that, even though upper stratospheric ozone is recovering, the continuing downward trend in the lower stratosphere prevails, resulting in a downward trend in stratospheric column ozone between 60° S and 60° N. We find that total column ozone between 60° S and 60° N appears not to have decreased only because of increases in tropospheric column ozone that compensate for the stratospheric decreases. The reasons for the continued reduction of lower stratospheric ozone are not clear; models do not reproduce these trends, and thus the causes now urgently need to be established.

In this paper, we present a merged dataset of ozone profiles from several satellite instruments: SAGE II on ERBS, GOMOS, SCIAMACHY and MIPAS on Envisat, OSIRIS on Odin, ACE-FTS on SCISAT, and OMPS on Suomi-NPP. The merged dataset is created in the framework of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (Ozone_cci) with the aim of analyzing stratospheric ozone trends. For the merged dataset, we used the latest versions of the original ozone datasets. The datasets from the individual instruments have been extensively validated and intercompared; only those datasets which are in good agreement, and do not exhibit significant drifts with respect to collocated ground-based observations and with respect to each other, are used for merging. The long-term SAGE–CCI–OMPS dataset is created by computation and merging of deseasonalized anomalies from individual instruments. The merged SAGE–CCI–OMPS dataset consists of deseasonalized anomalies of ozone in 10° latitude bands from 90° S to 90° N and from 10 to 50 km in steps of 1 km covering the period from October 1984 to July 2016. This newly created dataset is used for evaluating ozone trends in the stratosphere through multiple linear regression. Negative ozone trends in the upper stratosphere are observed before 1997 and positive trends are found after 1997. The upper stratospheric trends are statistically significant at midlatitudes and indicate ozone recovery, as expected from the decrease of stratospheric halogens that started in the middle of the 1990s and stratospheric cooling.

Ozone profile trends over the period 2000 to 2016 from several merged satellite ozone data sets and from ground-based data measured by four techniques at stations of the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change indicate significant ozone increases in the upper stratosphere, between 35 and 48 km altitude (5 and 1 hPa). Near 2 hPa (42 km), ozone has been increasing by about 1.5 % per decade in the tropics (20° S to 20° N), and by 2 to 2.5 % per decade in the 35 to 60° latitude bands of both hemispheres. At levels below 35 km (5 hPa), 2000 to 2016 ozone trends are smaller and not statistically significant. The observed trend profiles are consistent with expectations from chemistry climate model simulations. This study confirms positive trends of upper stratospheric ozone already reported, e.g., in the WMO/UNEP Ozone Assessment 2014 or by Harris et al. (2015). Compared to those studies, three to four additional years of observations, updated and improved data sets with reduced drift, and the fact that nearly all individual data sets indicate ozone increase in the upper stratosphere, all give enhanced confidence. Uncertainties have been reduced, for example for the trend near 2 hPa in the 35 to 60° latitude bands from about ±5 % (2σ) in Harris et al. (2015) to less than ±2 % (2σ). Nevertheless, a thorough analysis of possible drifts and differences between various data sources is still required, as is a detailed attribution of the observed increases to declining ozone-depleting substances and to stratospheric cooling. Ongoing quality observations from multiple independent platforms are key for verifying that recovery of the ozone layer continues as expected.

CMAM30 is a 30-year data set extending from 1979 to 2010 that is generated using a version of the Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model (CMAM) in which the winds and temperatures are relaxed to the Interim Reanalysis product from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ERA-Interim). The data set has dynamical fields that are very close to the reanalysis below 1 hPa and chemical tracers that are self-consistent with respect to the model winds and temperature. The chemical tracers are expected to be close to actual observations. The data set is here compared to two satellite records – the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier transform spectrometer and the Odin Optical Spectrograph and Infrared Imaging System – for the purpose of validating the temperature, ozone, water vapour and methane fields. Data from the Aura microwave limb sounder are also used for validation of the chemical processing in the polar vortex. It is found that the CMAM30 temperature is warmer by up to 5 K in the stratosphere, with a low bias in the mesosphere of ~ 5–15 K. Ozone is reasonable (±15 %), except near the tropopause globally and in the Southern Hemisphere winter polar vortex. Water vapour is consistently low by 10–20 %, with corresponding high methane of 10–20 %, except in the Southern Hemisphere polar vortex. Discrepancies in this region are shown to stem from the treatment of polar stratospheric cloud formation in the model.

Trends in the vertical distribution of ozone are reported and compared for a number of new and recently revised data sets. The amount of ozone-depleting compounds in the stratosphere (as measured by equivalent effective stratospheric chlorine – EESC) was maximised in the second half of the 1990s. We examine the periods before and after the peak to see if any change in trend is discernible in the ozone record that might be attributable to a change in the EESC trend, though no attribution is attempted. Prior to 1998, trends in the upper stratosphere (~ 45 km, 4 hPa) are found to be −5 to −10 % per decade at mid-latitudes and closer to −5 % per decade in the tropics. No trends are found in the mid-stratosphere (28 km, 30 hPa). Negative trends are seen in the lower stratosphere at mid-latitudes in both hemispheres and in the deep tropics. However, it is hard to be categorical about the trends in the lower stratosphere for three reasons: (i) there are fewer measurements, (ii) the data quality is poorer, and (iii) the measurements in the 1990s are perturbed by aerosols from the Mt Pinatubo eruption in 1991. These findings are similar to those reported previously even though the measurements for the main satellite and ground-based records have been revised. There is no sign of a continued negative trend in the upper stratosphere since 1998: instead there is a hint of an average positive trend of ~ 2 % per decade in mid-latitudes and ~ 3 % per decade in the tropics. The significance of these upward trends is investigated using different assumptions of the independence of the trend estimates found from different data sets. The averaged upward trends are significant if the trends derived from various data sets are assumed to be independent (as in Pawson et al., 2014) but are generally not significant if the trends are not independent. This occurs because many of the underlying measurement records are used in more than one merged data set. At this point it is not possible to say which assumption is best. Including an estimate of the drift of the overall ozone observing system decreases the significance of the trends. The significance will become clearer as (i) more years are added to the observational record, (ii) further improvements are made to the historic ozone record (e.g. through algorithm development), and (iii) the data merging techniques are refined, particularly through a more rigorous treatment of uncertainties.

In the framework of the SI2N (SPARC (Stratosphere-troposphere Processes And their Role in Climate)/IO3C (International Ozone Commission)/IGACO-O3 (Integrated Global Atmospheric Chemistry Observations – Ozone)/NDACC (Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change)) initiative, several long-term vertically resolved merged ozone data sets produced from satellite measurements have been analysed and compared. This paper presents an overview of the methods, assumptions, and challenges involved in constructing such merged data sets, as well as the first thorough intercomparison of seven new long-term satellite data sets. The analysis focuses on the representation of the annual cycle, interannual variability, and long-term trends for the period 1984–2011, which is common to all data sets. Overall, the best agreement amongst data sets is seen in the mid-latitude lower and middle stratosphere, with larger differences in the equatorial lower stratosphere and the upper stratosphere globally. In most cases, differences in the choice of underlying instrument records that were merged produced larger differences between data sets than the use of different merging techniques. Long-term ozone trends were calculated for the period 1984–2011 using a piecewise linear regression with a change in trend prescribed at the end of 1997. For the 1984–1997 period, trends tend to be most similar between data sets (with largest negative trends ranging from −4 to −8% decade−1 in the mid-latitude upper stratosphere), in large part due to the fact that most data sets are predominantly (or only) based on the SAGE-II record. Trends in the middle and lower stratosphere are much smaller, and, particularly for the lower stratosphere, large uncertainties remain. For the later period (1998–2011), trends vary to a greater extent, ranging from approximately −1 to +5% decade−1 in the upper stratosphere. Again, middle and lower stratospheric trends are smaller and for most data sets not significantly different from zero. Overall, however, there is a clear shift from mostly negative to mostly positive trends between the two periods over much of the profile.

Vertical profiles of the rate of linear change (trend) in the altitude range 15–50 km are determined from decadal O3 time series obtained from SCIAMACHY1/ENVISAT2 measurements in limb-viewing geometry. The trends are calculated by using a multivariate linear regression. Seasonal variations, the quasi-biennial oscillation, signatures of the solar cycle and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation are accounted for in the regression. The time range of trend calculation is August 2002–April 2012. A focus for analysis are the zonal bands of 20° N–20° S (tropics), 60–50° N, and 50–60° S (midlatitudes). In the tropics, positive trends of up to 5% per decade between 20 and 30 km and negative trends of up to 10% per decade between 30 and 38 km are identified. Positive O3 trends of around 5% per decade are found in the upper stratosphere in the tropics and at midlatitudes. Comparisons between SCIAMACHY and EOS MLS3 show reasonable agreement both in the tropics and at midlatitudes for most altitudes. In the tropics, measurements from OSIRIS4/Odin and SHADOZ5 are also analysed. These yield rates of linear change of O3 similar to those from SCIAMACHY. However, the trends from SCIAMACHY near 34 km in the tropics are larger than MLS and OSIRIS by a factor of around two. 1 SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY 2 European environmental research satellite 3 Earth Observing System (EOS) Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) 4 Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imager System 5 Southern Hemisphere ADditional OZonesondes

In spring 2011, the Arctic polar vortex was stronger than in any other year on record. As the polar vortex started to break up in April, ozone and NO2 columns were measured with UV-visible spectrometers above the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, Canada (80.05° N, 86.42° W) using the differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) technique. These ground-based column measurements were complemented by Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and Optical Spectrograph and Infra-Red Imager System (OSIRIS) satellite measurements, Global Modeling Initiative (GMI) simulations, and meteorological quantities. On 8 April 2011, NO2 columns above PEARL from the DOAS, OMI, and GMI datasets were approximately twice as large as in previous years. On this day, temperatures and ozone volume mixing ratios above Eureka were high, suggesting enhanced chemical production of NO2 from NO. Additionally, GMI NOx (NO + NO2) and N2O fields suggest that downward transport along the vortex edge and horizontal transport from lower latitudes also contributed to the enhanced NO2. The anticyclone that transported lower-latitude NOx above PEARL became frozen-in and persisted in dynamical and GMI N2O fields until the end of the measurement period on 31 May 2011. Ozone isolated within this frozen-in anticyclone (FrIAC) in the middle stratosphere was lost due to reactions with the enhanced NOx. Below the FrIAC (from the tropopause to 700 K), NOx driven ozone loss above Eureka was larger than in previous years, according to GMI monthly average ozone loss rates. Using the passive tracer technique, with passive ozone profiles from the Lagrangian Chemistry and Transport Model, ATLAS, ozone losses since 1 December 2010 were calculated at 600 K. In the air mass that was above Eureka on 20 May 2011, ozone losses reached 4.2 parts per million by volume (ppmv) (58%) and 4.4 ppmv (61%), when calculated using GMI and OSIRIS ozone profiles, respectively. This gas-phase ozone loss led to a more rapid decrease in ozone column amounts above Eureka in April/May 2011 compared with previous years. Ground-based, OMI, and GMI ozone total columns all decreased by more than 100 DU from 15 April to 20 May. Two lows in the ozone columns were also investigated and were attributed to a vortex remnant passing above Eureka at ~500 K on 12/13 May and an ozone mini-hole on 22/23 May.

The long term evolution of stratospheric ozone and water vapour has been investigated by extending satellite time series to April 2008. For ozone, we examine monthly average ozone values from various satellite data sets for nine latitude and altitude bins covering 60° S to 60° N and 20–45 km and covering the time period of 1979–2008. Data are from the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE I+II), the HALogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE), the Solar BackscatterUltraViolet-2 (SBUV/2) instrument, the Sub-Millimetre Radiometer (SMR), the Optical Spectrograph InfraRed Imager System (OSIRIS), and the SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartograpY (SCIAMACHY). Monthly ozone anomalies are calculated by utilising a linear regression model, which also models the solar, quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), and seasonal cycle contributions. Individual instrument ozone anomalies are combined producing an all instrument average. Assuming a turning point of 1997 and that the all instrument average is represented by good instrumental long term stability, the largest statistically significant ozone declines (at two sigma) from 1979–1997 are seen at the mid-latitudes between 35 and 45 km, namely −7.2%±0.9%/decade in the Northern Hemisphere and −7.1%±0.9%/in the Southern Hemisphere. Furthermore, for the period 1997 to 2008 we find that the same locations show the largest ozone recovery (+1.4% and +0.8%/decade respectively) compared to other global regions, although the estimated trend model errors indicate that the trend estimates are not significantly different from a zero trend at the 2 sigma level. An all instrument average is also constructed from water vapour anomalies during 1991–2008, using the SAGE II, HALOE, SMR, and the Microwave Limb Sounder (Aura/MLS) measurements. We report that the decrease in water vapour values after 2001 slows down around 2004–2005 in the lower tropical stratosphere (20–25 km) and has even shown signs of increasing until present. We show that a similar correlation is also seen with the temperature measured at 100 hPa during this same period.

The Canadian ACE (Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment) mission is dedicated to the retrieval of a large number of atmospheric trace gas species using the solar occultation technique in the infrared and UV/visible spectral domain. However, two additional solar disk imagers (at 525 nm and 1020 nm) were added for a number of reasons, including the retrieval of aerosol and cloud products. In this paper, we present first comparison results for these imager aerosol/cloud optical extinction coefficient profiles, with the ones derived from measurements performed by 3 solar occultation instruments (SAGE II, SAGE III, POAM III), one stellar occultation instrument (GOMOS) and one limb sounder (OSIRIS). The results indicate that the ACE imager profiles are of good quality in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere, although the aerosol extinction for the visible channel at 525 nm contains a significant negative bias at higher altitudes, while the relative differences indicate that ACE profiles are almost always too high at 1020 nm. Both problems are probably related to ACE imager instrumental issues.

On 6 December 2002, during winter darkness, an extraordinary event occurred in the sky, as viewed from Longyearbyen (78° N, 15° E), Svalbard, Norway. At 07:30 UT the southeast sky was surprisingly lit up in a deep red colour. The light increased in intensity and spread out across the sky, and at 10:00 UT the illumination was observed to reach the zenith. The event died out at about 12:30 UT. Spectral measurements from the Auroral Station in Adventdalen confirm that the light was scattered sunlight. Even though the Sun was between 11.8 and 14.6deg below the horizon during the event, the measured intensities of scattered light on the southern horizon from the scanning photometers coincided with the rise and setting of the Sun. Calculations of actual heights, including refraction and atmospheric screening, indicate that the event most likely was scattered solar light from a target below the horizon. This is also confirmed by the OSIRIS instrument on board the Odin satellite. The deduced height profile indicates that the scattering target is located 18–23km up in the stratosphere at a latitude close to 73–75° N, southeast of Longyearbyen. The temperatures in this region were found to be low enough for Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSC) to be formed. The target was also identified as PSC by the LIDAR systems at the Koldewey Station in Ny-Ålesund (79° N, 12° E). The event was most likely caused by solar illuminated type II Polar Stratospheric Clouds that scattered light towards Svalbard. Two types of scenarios are presented to explain how light is scattered. Keywords. Atmospheric composition and structure (Transmissions and scattering of radiation; Middle atmospherecomposition and chemistry; Instruments and techniques) – History of geophysics (Atmospheric Sciences; The red-sky phenomena)