The Satellite Application Facility on Ozone Monitoring (O3M SAF) is hosted by Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) and developed in co-operation with Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (KNMI), Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft - and Raumfarhrt (DLR), Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (LAP), Hellenic National Meteorological Service (HNMS), Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Meteo-France (M-F) and Koninklijk Meteorologisch Instituut (KMI), was initiated in June 1997.

The purpose of the O3M SAF is to produce a set of near real-time and offline products and validation services. Near real-time products are GOME-2 total ozone and ozone profiles, HIRS total ozone and UV clear-sky fields. Offline products derived from GOME-2 data are total column amounts of ozone, NO2, BrO, ozone profiles, aerosol index and optical depth and UV fields including cloudiness and albedo. The ozone and UV data will be validated against ground-based observations of total ozone and UV as well as balloon borne, microwave and lidar observations of the vertical distribution of ozone. The O3M SAF validation site is currently based on existing off-line GOME data. During the operational phase of O3M-SAF the validation web-site will provide updated validation results for GOME-2 data every six months.

For further information, please contact: Dr. Dimitris Balis, Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics, Thessaloniki Greece, Dr. Lucia Kins, German Weather Service, Dr. Andy Delcloo, Belgian Meteorological Institute.