Ozone (O3) is a gas that is of interest in two regions of Earth’s atmosphere – at ground level and in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere). Stratospheric ozone absorbs ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun and protects Earth from harmful levels of UV. Exposure to these UV rays has been linked to skin cancer. Monitoring variations in stratospheric ozone concentrations is important in New Zealand as we have high rates of skin cancers.
Ozone data for Lauder have been supplied in two forms: Measurements taken with Dobson spectrophotometer (number 72) and data assimilated from satellite measurements recalibrated against the global Dobson network. The Dobson spectrophotometer has been in operation at Lauder since January 1987. The timeseries for interpolated satellite data is available from 1978. Both timeseries are provided until 2013.
This dataset is the assimilated dataset which is available from 1978 to 2013. Measurements are in Dobson units (DU). One DU represents the amount of ozone molecules needed to produce a 0.01mm layer of pure ozone.
Further information can be found in:
Liley, B, Querel, B, & McKenzie, R (2014). Measurements of Ozone and UV for New Zealand. Prepared for the Ministry for the Environment, Wellington. Available at https://data.mfe.govt.nz/x/LoPyPo on the Ministry for the Environment dataservice (https://data.mfe.govt.nz/).
This dataset relates to the "Ozone concentrations" measure on the Environmental Indicators, Te taiao Aotearoa website.
