Ozone distribution and the continuum from observations in the region of the 1,043 cm⁻¹ band

An extended series of high‐resolution observations of atmospheric emission at five frequencies in the region of the 1,043 cm −1 ozone band has been made in order to infer the vertical distribution of ozone and the behaviour of the atmospheric continuum. The latter is found to vary from day to day and seasonally, probably because of changes in the nature, amount or vertical distribution of aerosol. This variability makes it difficult to exploit, in moist, hazy atmospheres, the inherent potential of the variation of line intensity across the ozone band in the derivation of the vertical distribution of ozone. The ozone contents of three layers, surface‐600 mb, 600–300 mb, 300–100 mb are obtained from the emission at 1,053·2 cm −1 only; they are found to be generally high, probably because the ozone transmission function used was not matched to the resolution of the observations. Relative variations in the lowest layer are probably realistic.