Can the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) Measure Ozone Depletion in RocketPlumes

摘要

The question whether the total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) is capable ofmeasuring ozone levels in a rocket plume is examined. Simulated measurements were computed for four plume scenarios corresponding to 20 and 30 km altitude and 10(exp 3) and 10(exp 4) s elapsed time. For each scenario, we considered plume constituents consisting of the chemical species calculated by Brady and Martin, and three different particle size distributions. For comparison, we also made simulated measurements of ozone total in the absence of particles and in the absence of particles and plume species. Plume measurements by TOMS suffer from two main problems: the detection field of view is typically larger than the column area for ozone loss, and the plume constituents distort the ozone measurement. Another issue limiting sensitivity is that TOMS measures attenuation of solar radiation transmitted through and then backscattered out of the atmosphere; however, only one of these two paths is likely to cross with the plume, unless TOMS is exactly aligned with the plume and the sun. Our simulated TOMS measurements indicate that large errors are caused by interfering absorptions by plume constituents; however, the error decreases to acceptable levels at 10(exp 4) s. jg p. 3.