Temporal and spatial patterns of the interannual variability of total ozone in the tropics

The recently constructed gridded Merged Ozone Data (MOD) set, combining the monthly mean column abundances collected by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV and SBUV/2) instruments, provides a nearly continuous record from late 1978 to 2000 on a 5° × 10° latitude‐longitude grid. The precision of these measurements and their calibration allow very small signals, ∼1% of total column ozone, to be clearly seen. Using MOD, we have carried out an empirical orthogonal function (EOF) study of the temporal and spatial patterns of the interannual variability of total column ozone in the tropics. The first four EOFs of our study capture over 93% of the variance of the deseasonalized data. The leading two EOFs of our study, respectively accounting for 42% and 33% of the variance, display structures attributable to the quasi‐biennial oscillation (QBO), with influence from a decadal oscillation. The third EOF (15% of the variance) represents an interaction between the QBO and an annual cycle. The fourth EOF (3% of the variance) is related to the El Niño ‐ Southern Oscillation. This EOF decomposition is robust; nearly identical patterns occur in the decomposition of various equatorial latitude bands of MOD and similar patterns occur in the analysis of the deseasonalized TOMS data set, a shorter record with a more finely resolved spatial grid. For comparison, similar decompositions were performed for dynamical fields from the reanalysis product from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Using these analyses, we found possible connections between the deduced patterns in ozone and the climate variables.