The version 8.6 SBUV ozone data record: An overview

Abstract Under a NASA program to produce long‐term data records from instruments on multiple satellites, data from a series of nine Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV and SBUV/2) instruments have been reprocessed to create a coherent ozone time series. Data from the BUV instrument on Nimbus 4, SBUV on Nimbus 7, and SBUV/2 instruments on NOAA 9, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, and 19 covering the period 1970–1972 and 1979–2011 were used to create a long‐term data set. The goal is an ozone Earth Science Data Record—a consistent, calibrated ozone time series that can be used for trend analyses and other studies. In order to create this ozone data set, the radiances were adjusted and used to reprocess the entire data records for each of the nine instruments. Interinstrument comparisons during periods of overlap as well as comparisons with data from other satellite and ground‐based instruments were used to evaluate the consistency of the record and make calibration adjustments as needed. Additional improvements in this version 8.6 processing included the use of the Brion, Daumont, and Malicet ozone cross sections, and a cloud‐height climatology derived from Aura OMI measurements. Validation of the reprocessed ozone shows that total column ozone is consistent with the Brewer/Dobson network to within about 1% for the new time series. Comparisons with MLS, SAGE, sondes, and lidar show that ozone at individual levels in the stratosphere is generally consistent to within 5%.