BGS Hosted Metadata
UTLS-Ozone: Balloon-borne Simultaneous Measurements of Ozone and Water Vapour in the Tropopause Region over Aberystwyth, UK
Ozone and water vapour in the tropopause region was an Upper Troposphere Lower Stratosphere (UTLS) Round 3 project led by Dr G. Vaughan, Dr J.A. Whiteway, Physics Department University of Wales, Aberystwyth and Dr R.L. Jones, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge. Dataset contains Balloon-borne simultaneous measurements of ozone and water vapour in the tropopause region. The flights are targeted as far as possible at different air masses in the lower stratosphere over Aberystwyth, with a particular emphasis on north-westerly jet streams.
Air at the base of the stratosphere, within 1-2 km of the tropopause, was considered intermediate in character between stratosphere and troposphere. The ozone concentration increases steeply with height from ~80 ppbv at the tropopause to several hundred ppbv 2 km above it. The water vapour concentration was more variable, but generally decreases from ~100 ppmv at the tropopause to the standard 5-6 ppmv in the same height region. Other tracers of tropospheric origin behave likewise, which means that the lowest 2 km of the stratosphere is of quite a different chemical character to the remainder of the stratosphere.
Water vapour was a key molecule in the UTLS region, and one that has traditionally been poorly measured above the tropopause. Even though the newest generation of radiosonde at that time (e.g. the Vaisala RS90) performed much better than its predecessors in the upper troposphere it still did not measure adequately in the stratosphere. The MOZAIC humidity sensor was of this type, and was also unable to extend into the stratosphere; indeed, it cannot measure reliably below 100 ppmv in the upper troposphere. Satellite instruments extend water vapour profiles into the UTLS region but their limited resolution in a region of strong vertical gradients limits their value. Measurements of UTLS humidity have therefore relied on in-situ research instrumentation, either balloon-borne or aircraft-borne. Aircraft and large balloons are expensive and cannot provide a proper climatology for water vapour, and the long sequence of NOAA frost-point hygrometer profiles do so only in one location (Boulder). This project seeked to develop a small, relatively cheap package to measure water vapour and ozone in the region around the tropopause.
The measurement phase of the project consisted of four month-long campaigns, for June, September and December 2001 and March 2002. An average of three flights a week were conducted during these periods - a total of 48 flights. These flights were targeted as far as possible, at different air masses in the lower stratosphere over Aberystwyth, with a particular emphasis on north-westerly jet streams. Forecast charts have been used to identify suitable conditions (350 K potential vorticity forecasts from ECMWF were available from NILU, Norway for 1 and 2 days ahead).
Simple
- Date (Publication)
- 2003-12-10T02:35:12
- Date (Creation)
- 2003-12-10T02:35:12
- Citation identifier
- https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/153f0cb0d6d6c6c2c52015f6fb35a766
- Citation identifier
- NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) / 153f0cb0d6d6c6c2c52015f6fb35a766
- Point of contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role NERC UTLS-Ozone Ozone and Water vapour measurements in the tropopause region campaign participants (University of Wales, Aberystwyth)
unknown
Author Unavailable
Vaughan, Geraint
Unavailable
Author Unavailable
et. al,
Unavailable
Author NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Custodian NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Distributor NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
pointofContact NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Publisher
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Unknown
- Update scope
- Series
- Keywords
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UTLS
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chemistry
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ozone
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water vapour
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GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
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atmospheric conditions
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- Access constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- Please contact the data centre for assistance on accessing data from this dataset collection.
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Spatial representation type
- Grid
- Language
- English
- Topic category
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- Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere
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- Begin date
- 2000-05-03T23:00:00
- End date
- 2002-07-30T23:00:00
- Unique resource identifier
- WGS 84
- Distribution format
-
Name Version Contact data centre for format details.
- Distributor contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Distributor
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/153f0cb0d6d6c6c2c52015f6fb35a766 CEDA Data Catalogue Page
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/badc_datadocs/utls-ozone/utls-protocol.html UTLS-Ozone Data Protocol
- Hierarchy level
- Series
Conformance result
- Title
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Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services
- Date (Publication)
- 2010-12-08
- Statement
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Please see data lineage statements for each dataset within this collection for data lineage details.
Metadata
- File identifier
- 153f0cb0d6d6c6c2c52015f6fb35a766 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Hierarchy level
- Series
- Hierarchy level name
-
series
- Date stamp
- 2026-03-11T03:29:16
- Metadata standard name
- UK GEMINI
- Metadata standard version
-
2.3
- Metadata author
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Point of contact
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