Validation of the Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument total column ozone product

This paper is an overview of the validation of the total column ozone data products from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on board the NASA EOS‐Aura satellite. OMI is an imaging UV/visible spectrometer that maps global ozone on a daily basis. There are two ozone products from OMI, one derived using the traditional TOMS retrieval algorithm and another derived using a Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy algorithm that is being developed to take advantage of the hyperspectral capabilities of OMI. Validation is primarily performed through comparison with a network of Dobson and Brewer ground stations and secondarily through campaigns conducted specifically to validate Aura. Comparison with an ensemble of 76 Northern Hemisphere ground stations shows that OMI‐TOMS total column ozone averages 0.4% higher than the station average, with station‐to‐station standard deviation of ±0.6%. The comparison shows that the OMI‐TOMS ozone was stable over the 2‐year period with no evidence of drift relative to the ground network. The OMI‐DOAS product is also stable but with a 1.1% offset and a seasonal variation of ±2%. During four aircraft validation campaigns using the NASA DC‐8 and WB‐57 aircraft, ozone above the aircraft was measured using an actinic flux instrument and compared with OMI ozone. These comparisons showed agreement within 2% over a broad range of latitude and viewing conditions. Only during the high‐latitude flights did the OMI‐DOAS ozone show the effects of a solar zenith angle dependent error.