TROPOMI/S5ptotal ozone column data: global ground-based validation & consistency with other satellite missions

Abstract. In October 2017, the Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5p) mission was launched, carrying the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument, TROPOMI, which provides a daily global coverage at a spatial resolution as high as 7 km × 3.5 km and is expected to extend the European atmospheric composition record initiated with GOME/ERS-2 in 1995, bringing up significant new components to the scientific knowledge of atmospheric processes. Due to the ongoing need to understand and monitor the recovery of the ozone layer, as well as the evolution of tropospheric pollution, total ozone remains one of the leading species of interest during this mission. In this work the TROPOMI Near-Real Time, NRTI, and Offline, OFFL, total ozone column (TOC) products are presented and compared to daily ground-based quality-assured Brewer and Dobson TOC measurements deposited in the World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre (WOUDC). Additional comparisons to individual Brewer measurements from the Canadian Brewer Network and the European Brewer Network (Eubrewnet) are performed. Furthermore, twilight zenith-sky measurements obtained with ZSL-DOAS (Zenith Scattered Light Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy) instruments, that form part of the SAOZ network (Système d'Analyse par Observation Zénitale), are used for the validation. The quality of the TROPOMI TOC data is evaluated in terms of the influence of location, solar zenith and viewing angles, season, effective temperature, surface albedo and clouds. For this purpose, globally distributed ground-based measurements have been utilized as the background truth. The overall statistical analysis of the global comparison shows that the mean bias and the mean standard deviation of the percentage difference between TROPOMI and ground-based TOC is within 0–1.5 % and 2.5–4.5 %, respectively. The mean bias that results from the comparisons is well within the S5p product requirements, while the mean standard deviation is very close to those limits, especially considering that the statistics shown here originate both from the satellite and the ground-based measurements. Additionally, the TROPOMI OFFL and NRTI products are evaluated against already known space-borne sensors, namely, the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (OMPS/Suomi-NPP), NASA v2 TOCs, and the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment–2 (GOME-2) on board the MetοpΑ (GOME-2/MetοpΑ) and MetopB (GOME-2/MetopB) satellites. This analysis shows a very good agreement for both TROPOMI products to well established instruments, with the absolute differences in mean bias and mean standard deviation being below 0.7 % and 1 %, respectively. These results assure the scientific community of the good quality of the TROPOMI TOC products during its first year of operation and enhance the already high expectations that S5p TROPOMI will play a very significant role in the continuity of the ozone monitoring from space.