Analysis of the Nighttime Variation Characteristics of Mesospheric Ozone and Correlation with Solar Activity

The satellite ozone data of ENVISAT-1/GOMOS (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars) and TIMED/SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) are analyzed to provide a statistical analysis of the distribution of ozone in the tropical mesosphere (60～110 km) at night (20:00 LT－24:00 LT) and explore its correlation with the 27-day solar cycle with HAMMONIA (Hamburg model of the neutral and ionized atmosphere). Both observations and model indicate that the nighttime ozone in the mesosphere peaks at 95 km and there is a semiannual oscillation in the upper mesosphere; Comparison with Lyman-α solar radiative forcing data over the same period shows that upper mesospheric (above 80 km) ozone may be inversely correlated with solar forcing, and lower mesospheric ozone may be positively correlated with solar forcing.. In order to better explore the correlation with solar activity, the ozone data were processed by filtering, and it was found that the inverse correlation between ozone at 95 km and Lyman-α was more significant. This correlation is more pronounced when long-term and short-term fluctuations are removed, especially in the months before and after the period of maximum amplitude of the 27-day solar radiative forcing cycle (around January and July 2004). Although the observations and the model results share some common features in the temporal and spatial distribution of ozone variations with months, large differences are found in the values of the peaks where the amplitude of ozone sensitivity is greatly underestimated by the model.