BUV/Nimbus-4: High-Density Ozone Vertical Distribution and Total Column Data

From April 1970 to May 1977, the Nimbus-4 BUV instrument collected vertical ozone distribution and total column amounts during the sunlit portions of orbits. Each file contains total ozone, reflectivities, mixing ratios at 19 pressure levels, and layer ozone amounts at 12 layers, along with quality flags and orbital information. The data were produced by NASA, originally archived on magnetic tapes and now restored in their original IBM binary format.

Use Cases

• Modeling historical ozone layer depletion based on vertical mixing ratio profiles at 19 pressure levels.
• Analyzing orbital and seasonal variations in total column ozone amounts.
• Studying the impact of the 1972 satellite power failure on data sparsity, particularly in equatorial regions.

Strengths

• Provides ozone mixing ratios at 19 specific pressure levels from 0.3 to 100 mbar.
• Includes layer ozone amounts for 12 defined atmospheric layers.
• Contains a full set of ancillary information such as quality flags, reflectivities, and orbital data.

Limitations

• Data sparsity increased after July 1972 due to a satellite power failure, particularly affecting equatorial regions.
• Data is stored in an original IBM binary file format, which may require specialized tools for interpretation.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the BUV instrument on the Nimbus-4 satellite.

Time Range

April 10, 1970 to May 6, 1977

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 07:30:46.106539; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage from satellite orbits.