The Upcoming Data Desert for Factors that Control Atmospheric Ozone

The Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment-Fourier Transform Spectrometer instrument on the Canadian Space Agency SCISAT-1 satellite, the Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on the NASA Aura satellite, and the Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument on the NASA Terra satellite have provided a wealth of measurements used by the atmospheric science community to quantify the impact of human activities on ozone throughout the stratosphere and troposphere. All three instruments are well beyond their design lifetimes and will likely be decommissioned in the next few years. Once these instruments are decommissioned, we will lose daily, near-global measurements of ozone and a diverse portfolio of trace gases. During this upcoming “data desert”, scientists will have much less information at their disposal to assess how the ozone layer is being affected by perturbations due to events such as strong volcanic eruptions, wildfires that deposit particulate matter into the stratosphere, how pollutants are transported through the global troposphere and in some cases into the stratosphere, the slower than once expected recovery of stratospheric halogen loading due to regulations imposed by the Montreal Protocol, as well as possible perturbations caused by geo-engineering of climate. In this presentation we will highlight recent discoveries related to atmospheric ozone enabled by ACE-FTS, MLS, and MOPITT observations following the Australians wildfires of late 2019 and early 2020, the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai in January 2022, and the exceptionally cold Arctic winter of 2019/2020. We will conclude by assessing the viability of measurements from other operational satellite instruments as well as various sub-orbital assets for overcoming this upcoming “data desert”.