Abstract
STUDIES of Dobson measurements have revealed long-term variations of total ozone of the order of 11 yr (refs 1–5). However, there is a lack of consensus as to whether these long-term variations are in response to changes in solar activity5–9. It has been suggested8 that shorter-term responses might be detected if a relationship between ozone and solar activity exists. In this study the shorter-term monthly averaged variations of global ozone, determined from infrared interferometer spectrometer (IRIS) measurements aboard Nimbus 4, are shown to be consistently in agreement with monthly averaged variations of solar activity. Such natural variations must be taken into account when trying to isolate the effects of anthropogenic species such as chlorofluoromethanes and nitrogen fertilisers on the ozone layer. The relationship between monthly changes of ozone and solar activity are found to be generally consistent with the longer-term ozone variations over the last solar cycle and can be accounted for by assuming monthly solar flux variations near 0.2 µm of about 2%.
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KEATING, G. Relation between monthly variations of global ozone and solar activity. Nature 274, 873–874 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/274873a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/274873a0
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