Antarctic ozone hole as observed by IASI/MetOp for 2008–2010

Abstract. In this paper we present a study of the ozone hole as observed by the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on-board the MetOp-A European satellite platform from the beginning of data dissemination, August 2008, to the end of December 2010. Here we demonstrate IASI's ability to capture the seasonal characteristics of the ozone hole, in particular during polar night. We compare IASI ozone total columns and vertical profiles with those of the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment 2 (GOME-2, also on-board MetOp-A) and electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) ozone sonde measurements. Total ozone column from IASI and GOME-2 were found to be in excellent agreement for this region with a correlation coefficient of 0.97, for September, October and November 2009. On average IASI exhibits a positive bias of approximately 7% compared to the GOME-2 measurements over the entire ozone hole period. Comparisons between IASI and ozone sonde measurements were also found to be in good agreement with the difference between both ozone profile measurements being less than ±30% over the altitude range of 0–40 km. The vertical structure of the ozone profile inside the ozone hole is captured remarkably well by IASI.