We analyze the 2019 sudden stratospheric warming event that occurred in the Southern Hemisphere through its impact on the Antarctic ozone. Using temperature, ozone, and nitric acid data from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI), our results show that the average increase in stratospheric temperature reached a maximum of 34.4° on 20 September in the [60–90]°S latitude range when compared to the past 3 years. Dynamical parameters suggest a locally reversed and weakened zonal winds and a shift in the location of the polar jet vortex. This led to air masses mixing, to a reduced polar stratospheric clouds formation detected at a ground station, and as such to lower ozone and nitric acid depletion. 2019 total ozone columns for the months of September, October, and November were on average higher by 29%, 28%, and 26%, respectively, when compared to the 11‐year average of the same months.

Over the Mediterranean region, elevated tropospheric ozone (O3) values are recorded, especially in summer. We use the thermal Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) and the Weather Research and Forecasting Model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) to understand and interpret the factors and emission sources responsible for the high O3 concentrations observed in the Mediterranean troposphere. Six years (2008–2013) of IASI data have been analyzed and results show consistent maxima during summer, with an increase of up to 22% in the [0–8] km O3 column in the eastern part of the basin compared to the middle of the basin. We focus on summer 2010 to investigate the processes that contribute to these summer maxima. Using two modeled O3 tracers (inflow to the model domain and local anthropogenic emissions), we show that, between the surface and 2 km, O3 is mostly formed from anthropogenic emissions, while above 4 km it is mostly transported from outside the domain or from stratospheric origins. Evidence of stratosphere-to-troposphere exchange (STE) events in the eastern part of the basin is shown, and corresponds to a low water vapor mixing ratio and high potential vorticity.

This paper presents an extensive intercomparison and validation for the ozone (O₃) product measured by the two Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometers (IASIs) launched on board the MetOp-A and MetOp-B satellites in 2006 and in 2012 respectively. IASI O₃ total columns and vertical profiles obtained from Fast Optimal Retrievals on Layers for IASI (FORLI) v20140922 software (running up until recently) are validated against independent observations during the period 2008–2014 on a global scale. On average for the period 2013–2014, IASI-A and IASI-B total ozone columns (TOCs) retrieved using FORLI are consistent, with IASI-B providing slightly lower values with a global difference of only 0.2 ± 0.8 %. The comparison between IASI-A and IASI-B O₃ vertical profiles shows differences within ± 2 % over the entire altitude range. Global validation results for 7 years of IASI TOCs from FORLI against the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) launched on board MetOp-A and Brewer–Dobson data show that, on average, IASI overestimates the ultraviolet (UV) data by 5–6 % with the largest differences found in the southern high latitudes. The comparison with UV–visible SAOZ (Système d'Analyse par Observation Zénithale) measurements shows a mean bias between IASI and SAOZ TOCs of 2–4 % in the midlatitudes and tropics and 7 % at the polar circle. Part of the discrepancies found at high latitudes can be attributed to the limited information content in the observations due to low brightness temperatures. The comparison with ozonesonde vertical profiles (limited to 30 km) shows that on average IASI with FORLI processing underestimates O₃ by ∼ 5–15 % in the troposphere while it overestimates O₃ by ∼ 10–40 % in the stratosphere, depending on the latitude. The largest relative differences are found in the tropical tropopause region; this can be explained by the low O₃ amounts leading to large relative errors. In this study, we also evaluate an updated version of FORLI-O3 retrieval software (v20151001), using look-up tables recalculated to cover a larger spectral range using the latest HITRAN spectroscopic database (HITRAN 2012) and implementing numerical corrections. The assessment of the new O₃ product with the same set of observations as that used for the validation exercise shows a correction of ∼ 4 % for the TOC positive bias when compared to the UV ground-based and satellite observations, bringing the overall global comparison to ∼ 1–2 % on average. This improvement is mainly associated with a decrease in the retrieved O₃ concentration in the middle stratosphere (above 30 hPa/25 km) as shown by the comparison with ozonesonde data.

In this paper, we assess how daily ozone (O₃) measurements from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) on the MetOp-A platform can contribute to the analyses of the processes driving O₃ variability in the troposphere and the stratosphere and, in the future, to the monitoring of long-term trends. The temporal evolution of O₃ during the first 6 years of IASI (2008–2013) operation is investigated with multivariate regressions separately in four different layers (ground–300, 300–150, 150–25, 25–3 hPa), by adjusting to the daily time series averaged in 20° zonal bands, seasonal and linear trend terms along with important geophysical drivers of O₃ variation (e.g. solar flux, quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO)). The regression model is shown to perform generally very well with a strong dominance of the annual harmonic terms and significant contributions from O₃ drivers, in particular in the equatorial region where the QBO and the solar flux contribution dominate. More particularly, despite the short period of the IASI data set available up to now, two noticeable statistically significant apparent trends are inferred from the daily IASI measurements: a positive trend in the upper stratosphere (e.g. 1.74 ± 0.77 DU year⁻¹ between 30 and 50° S), which is consistent with other studies suggesting a turnaround for stratospheric O₃ recovery, and a negative trend in the troposphere at the mid-latitudes and high northern latitudes (e.g. −0.26 ± 0.11 DU year⁻¹ between 30 and 50° N), especially during summer and probably linked to the impact of decreasing ozone precursor emissions. The impact of the high temporal sampling of IASI on the uncertainty in the determination of O₃ trend has been further explored by performing multivariate regressions on IASI monthly averages and on ground-based Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) measurements.

The Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometers (IASIs) are three instruments flying on board the Metop satellites, launched in 2006 (IASI-A), 2012 (IASI-B), and 2018 (IASI-C). They measure infrared radiance from the Earth and atmosphere system, from which the atmospheric composition and temperature can be retrieved using dedicated algorithms, forming the Level 2 (L2) product. The operational near real-time processing of IASI data is conducted by the EUropean organisation for the exploitation of METeorological SATellites (EUMETSAT). It has improved over time, but due to IASI’s large data flow, the whole dataset has not yet been reprocessed backwards. A necessary step that must be completed before initiating this reprocessing is to uniformize the IASI radiance record (Level 1C), which has also changed with time due to various instrumental and software modifications. In 2019, EUMETSAT released a reprocessed IASI-A 2007–2017 radiance dataset that is consistent with both the L1C product generated after 2017 and with IASI-B. First, this study aimed to assess the changes in radiance associated with this update by comparing the operational and reprocessed datasets. The differences in the brightness temperature ranged from 0.02 K at 700 cm⁻¹ to 0.1 K at 2200 cm⁻¹. Additionally, two major updates in 2010 and 2013 were seen to have the largest impact. Then, we investigated the effects on the retrieved temperatures due to successive upgrades to the Level 2 processing chain. We compared IASI L2 with ERA5 reanalysis temperatures. We found differences of ~5–10 K at the surface and between 1 and 5 K in the atmosphere. These differences decreased abruptly after the release of the IASI L2 processor version 6 in 2014. These results suggest that it is not recommended to use the IASI inhomogeneous temperature products for trend analysis, both for temperature and trace gas trends.