A Discussion of Indirect Sounding Methods With Special Reference to the Deduction of Vertical Ozone Distribution From Light Scattering Measurements

Instability limits the usefulness of indirect sounding, i.e. the deduction of a physical distribution from a set of observations which represent an integral transform of the former. A method is presented which allows a stable, but smoothed, solution to be obtained in certain cases. As an illustration of the application of the method, the deduction of vertical ozone distribution from measurements of the spectral distribution of scattered ultraviolet radiation is discussed. Graphs showing results from several possible methods of inversion are included to show the difficulties associated with such indirect measurements.