Simple tropospheric ozone retrieval from TOMS and OMI

When the background tropospheric ozone column over the Pacific Ocean is subtracted from the latitudinal total ozone distribution, the results show remarkable agreement with the latitudinal stratospheric ozone distribution using the CCD. The latitudinal tropospheric ozone distribution using the CCD method, with a persistent maximum over the southern tropical Atlantic, is also seen in the latitudinal tropospheric ozone distribution using the T-P method. It suggests that the CCD method can be replaced by the simple T-P method. However, the tropical Atlantic paradox exists in the results of both the CCD and T-P methods during the northern burning season. In order to investigate this paradox, we compare the latitudinal ozone distributions using the CCD and T-P methods by using the SAGE measurements (e.g. TSA method) and the SHADOZ ozonesoundings (e.g. T-S method) assuming zonally invariant stratospheric ozone, which is the same assumption as of the CCD method. During the northern burning season, the latitudinal distributions in the tropospheric ozone derived from the T-SA and T-S methods show higher tropospheric ozone over the northern tropical Atlantic than the southern Atlantic due to a stronger gradient in stratospheric ozone relative to that from the CCD and T-P methods. This indicates that the latitudinal tropospheric ozone distribution can be changed depending on the data that is used to determine the latitudinal stratospheric ozone distribution. Therefore, there is a possibility that the north-south gradient in stratospheric ozone over the Atlantic can be a solution of the paradox.