Stability of temperatures from TIMED/SABER v1.07 (2002–2009) and Aura/MLS v2.2 (2004–2009) compared with OH(6-2) temperatures observed at Davis Station, Antarctica

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: French, W.J.R., Mulligan, F.J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications for European Geosciences Union (EGU) 2010
• Subjects: Experimental Physics; Davis Station; Davis-Station; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/2698/; https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-10-11439-2010; https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/2698/1/FM_Stability.pdf

Temperature profiles from two satellite instruments – TIMED/SABER and Aura/MLS – have been used to calculate hydroxyl-layer equivalent temperatures for comparison with values measured from OH(6-2) emission lines observed by a ground-based spectrometer located at Davis Station, Antarctica (68 S, 78 E). The profile selection criteria – miss-distance <500 km from the ground station and solar zenith angles >97 – yielded a total of 2359 SABER profiles over 8 years (2002–2009) and 7407 MLS profiles over 5.5 years (2004–2009). The availability of simultaneous OH volume emission rate (VER) profiles from the SABER (OH-B channel) enabled an assessment of the impact of several different weighting functions in the calculation of OHequivalent temperatures. The maximum difference between all derived hydroxyl layer equivalent temperatures was less than 3 K. Restricting the miss-distance and miss-time criteria showed little effect on the bias, suggesting that the OH layer is relatively uniform over the spatial and temporal scales considered. However, a significant trend was found in the bias between SABER and Davis OH of 0.7 K/year over the 8- year period with SABER becoming warmer compared with the Davis OH temperatures. In contrast, Aura/MLS exhibited a cold bias of 9.9±0.4K compared with Davis OH, but importantly, the bias remained constant over the 2004– 2009 year period examined. The difference in bias behaviour of the two satellites has significant implications for multiannual and long-term studies using their data.