Vertical ozone profiles deduced from measurements of SBUS on FY-3 satellite

The FY-3 satellite is a second-generation Chinese polar-orbit meteorological satellite. The Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Sounder (SBUS), one of the main payloads on the FY-3 satellite, is the first Chinese ozone-monitoring instrument on a meteorological satellite. As part of the in-orbit validation of FY-3, we carried out a retrieval trial using measurements from SBUS during the period of 17-30 July, 2008, and compared those data with measurements and retrieved profiles from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite SBUV/2. The results show that the precision of the measurements and retrieved profiles are quite good. The averaged relative difference percentages of the ozone profiles retrieved from SBUS and those from SBUV/2 are within ±7%.