EOS Validation Program

Institution: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
                    Wallops Flight Facility
                    Code 614.6
                    Wallops Island, VA 23337
Phone: (757) 824-1618
FAX: (757) 824-1036
E-mail: fjs@osb.wff.nasa.gov

We plan to obtain correlative measurements of vertical ozone measurements at a number of locations to satisfy validation requirements of the SAGE III investigators. In past years, we have conducted a number of instrument studies of the ECC ozonesonde instrument in the laboratory and during actual flights. Calibration procedures were established over a decade ago that we believe give considerable improvement to our understanding of the measurements obtained by the ECC ozonesonde. Photometers are used to insure flight instrument calibration and every ozone pump is calibrated for an individual pump efficiency correction, also determined in the laboratory. We propose to establish a measurement capability at Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, Natal, Brazil, and Ascension Island. The latter two sites are important because presently there are insufficient ozone measurements available from Equatorial regions, and could be considered as augmenting the existing Network for Detection of Stratospheric Change (NDSC) . An observation schedule in agreement with the SAGE III PI will permit approximately 30 ozonesondes to be flown from each of the sites. Data will be transferred to the Observational Science Branch via FTP. Recent papers and presentations are: "ECC Ozonesonde Calibration Methods Currently Used at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility" presented at the Quadrennial Ozone Symposium held in September 1996 at L"Aquila, Italy; and, "Sondex96: A Joint Venture Field Experiment of NASA and SMI" which was presented at the recent American Meteorological Society Meeting held during February 1997 in Long Beach, California.