Three-dimensional simulations of ozone in the stratosphere and comparison with UARS data

A 3-D Atmospheric Chemical Transport model has been developed and used to simulate the present-day ozone distributions in the troposphere and stratosphere. A 5-year-long steady-state model run using 1995 boundary conditions and circulation fields derived from the 24-layer University of Illinois at Urban a-Champaign (UIUC) Atmospheric General Circulation model has been carried out. The simulated distribution of ozone is compared with available observations made by the HALOE, CLAES and MLS instruments onboard the LIARS satellite. The comparison is carried out for the monthly zonal-mean climatology of the ozone distribution. The correlations between the monthly zonal-mean ozone derived from the simulated and measured data are calculated. The results of this comparison show reasonable agreement (within 30%) of the simulated and measured monthly zonal-mean ozone distributions, although the location of the simulated maximum in the ozone distribution is generally lower by about 2–3 km than shown by the satellite data. The model overestimates the ozone mixing ratio in the lower stratosphere and slightly underestimates it in the upper stratosphere. A better overall agreement was found between the simulated ozone and the ozone measured by HALOE than by CLAES and MLS.