Analysis of solar backscatter in the ultraviolet ozone measurements

Abstract Remote sensing analysis of the Earth's atmosphere provides valuable information regarding past, current, and even future implications of life on our planet. Our atmosphere's dynamic composition has supported life and life-supporting environments for millenia, yet there are many concerns as to its current and future stability. The Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) technique is one such remote-sensing method that employs measuring the solar ultraviolet light that is scattered back to space from the atmosphere. One primary utility of this method is the measurement of ozone within the Earth's stratosphere. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) NOAA-11 SBUV/2 satellite instrument was launched on September 24, 1988 to measure ozone abundances in the stratosphere. Our objective is to analyze the NOAA-11 SBUV/2 ozone measurements at 15 pressure levels. These measurements are first averaged in 10 degree latitude bands at each pressure level to develop an individual ozone time series for the period between1988-1999. We then fit these time series to a model consisting of mean, seasonal, and inter-annual terms using multiple-linear-regression-analysis. We will show which parameters influence the variation in ozone levels at these latitude bands and pressure levels as well as estimating the variances of these parameters.