Atmospheric ozone measurements in Beijing by solar and skylight spectrophotometer

Abstract

Ozone concentration was measured using direct sun and moon as the light source. The instrument was developed at the State Meteorological Administration (SMA). Results obtained did not differ significantly from measurements made simultaneously using a Dobson spectrophotometer near Beijing.

Since the discovery of ozone depletion (or ozone hole) in Antarctica, ozone problem has become one of the major concerns of the world. In SMA, China, ozone project started in 1986, many years later than the world society. The purpose of the project is to form an ozone monitoring network in typical areas of China gradually, to monitor the ozone trend and study the mechanism of the trend and its impacts. As a first step, a solar and skylight spectrophotometer (Hsueh et al, 1989) was developed. Some trial measurements of the total column abundance of ozone were conducted in Beijing. A brief description of the instrument and the measurement results will be reported in this paper.