Abstract

Studies by the Ozone Trends Panel showed that global total ozone measured by the SBUV/TOMS instruments on Nimbus 7 declined relative to the network of Dobson stations by about four percent between 1979 and 1988. This decline was most likely due to under-correction for degradation of the diffuser plate used to measure solar flux. A general technique has now been developed by the GSFC Ozone Processing Team to stabilize the calibration of backscattered ultraviolet instruments against long term changes in instrument characteristics. This technique has now been used to recalibrate the TOMS instrument and to reprocess the TOMS data from November, 1978, through October, 1988. We feel that our goal, to produce a long term ozone data set accurate to within 1% over ten years that is independent of the Dobson network, has been met.

© 1990 Optical Society of America