MIPAS helps to validate SMILES ozone

 

 

 

This figure shows the mean ozone profiles as measured with the Japanese SMILES instrument from the International Space Station (ISS) and MIPAS for two different SMILES channels (left panels) and absolute as well as percentage differences (right panels). Up to about 6 hPa there is excellent agreement, while above MIPAS ozone is systematically higher than SMILES ozone.

A possible high bias of MIPAS at altitudes above the ozone maximum has been found for all MIPAS processors in comparison to various reference instruments. A candidate explanation is that at higher altitudes spectral ozone lines at wavenumbers above 1000 cm^-1 are increasingly important for the retrieval. The change of spectral lines with altitude may lead to inconsistencies. The MIPAS-SMILES intercomparison is reported here