For more information, see our satellite home page. Ozone has a significant influence on the oxidizing power of the atmosphere, is an important greenhouse gas in the upper troposphere, acts as a ultraviolet shield in the stratosphere, and at the surface is toxic to humans, animals, and vegetation. Many questions remain about its distribution and what governs its distribution, especially in the tropics due to uncertainties in both lightning and biomass burning. During all seasons, they also reveal a persistent maximum in TTOCs in the tropical Atlantic of approximately twice the magnitude of the Pacific minimum. We are examining the senstivity of these features to the radiative and heterogeneous effects of mineral dust aerosols and to NOx from lightning.
Nitrogen oxides are ozone precursors.
Lightning is believed to be the dominant source of in the tropics, yet its magnitude is highly uncertain, in part due to the difficulty of observing the tropical upper troposphere. The magnitude and seasonal variation of biomass burning emissions are also uncertain, especially over northern Africa. Formaldehyde is a trace gas common to most mechanisms of tropospheric chemistry. Despite its importance and its simple mechanism, variability in many formaldehyde observations cannot be explained. Since the ocean evolves much more slowly than the atmosphere, persistent ocean temperature anomalies can be used to develop seasonal atmospheric forecasts.