Mesospheric ozone densities retrieved from OSIRIS observations of the oxygen A-band dayglow

The Odin satellite was launched into orbit in early 2001 with one of its main objectives being to investigate ozone and ozone-related chemistry in the middle atmosphere. One of Odin's two instruments is the OSIRIS instrument, which scans the Earth's limb, observing Rayleigh-scattered sunlight with high vertical resolution and near-global coverage. An important feature that OSIRIS observes in the mesosphere is the emission of molecular oxygen A-band dayglow, the intensity of which is dependent on local ozone density.;A detailed error analysis is performed on the retrievals determining the sensitivity of the results to different sources of error, such as instrument noise, errors in the forward model parameters, and errors in the retrieval method itself. The retrievals are also examined to determine vertical, latitudinal, and seasonal variations. Variations are compared to previous and concurrent measurements from a number of other sources.;A kinetic-photochemical model of the A-band dayglow has been developed in order to forward model the OSIRIS observations. The model takes into account the most current measurements of photochemical reaction coefficients, line strengths, and incident solar flux, and assumes an MSIS background atmosphere. The observations and forward model are used in an iterative optimal estimation technique to solve the inverse problem of retrieving ozone density profiles between altitudes of 70 - 95 km. The results form a climatological database of upper mesospheric ozone, which is compared with near-coincident ozone retrievals from the SABER instrument aboard the TIMED satellite.