Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiments I and II comparisons with ozonesondes

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Abstract
Ozone profiles measured by the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiments (SAGE) I and II are compared with ozonesonde profiles at 24 stations over the period extending from 1979 through 1991. Ozonesonde/satellite differences at 21 stations with SAGE II overpasses were computed down to 11.5 km in the midlatitudes, to 15.5 km in the lower latitudes, and for nine stations with SAGE I overpasses down to 15.5 km. The set of individual satellite and ozonesonde profile comparisons most closely colocated in time and space shows mean absolute differences relative to the satellite measurement of 6±2% for SAGE II and 8±3% for SAGE I. The ensemble of ozonesonde/satellite differences, when averaged over all altitudes, shows that for SAGE II, 70% were less than 5%, whereas for SAGE I, 50% were less than 5%. The best agreement occurred in the altitude region near the ozone density maximum where almost all the relative differences were less than 5%. Most of the statistically significant differences occurred below the ozone maximum down to the tropopause in the region of steepest ozone gradients and typically ranged between 0 and −20%. Correlations between ozone and aerosol extinction in the northern midlatitudes indicate that aerosols had no discernible impact on the ozonesonde/satellite differences and on the SAGE II ozone retrieval for the levels of extinction encountered in the lower stratosphere during 1984 to mid‐1991.