Highlights of Ten Years of GOMOS Measurements

During the ten years of its operations, Envisat/GOMOS (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars) instrument has successfully demonstrated the capabilities of stellar occultation technique for atmospheric profiling. In this presentation we show highlights of GOMOS measurements: vertical profiles of O3, NO2, NO3 and aerosols, including polar mesospheric clouds and polar stratospheric clouds, using UV-VIS wavelengths and O2 and H2O using two near-IR channels. High vertical resolution temperature profiles are obtained using the time delay of the red and the blue photometers of GOMOS. The two photometers are also used for studying turbulence and gravity waves. Constituents with weak spectral signatures, such as OClO and Na, can be detected using temporal averaging. GOMOS measurements provide global coverage with about 200-400 daily measurements. Vertically the measurements extend from 10 km to 100 km with varying valid altitude range depending on constituent. Stellar occultation technique ensures high vertical resolution of 2-4 km, very accurate altitude registration and relatively simple data retrieval. The self-calibrating feature of the occultation technique is particularly suitable for long term trend analysis and thus crucial for studying the climate-chemistry interactions.