NASA has developed a new version of its total ozone data product using measurements from the OMPS instrument on the NOAA-20 satellite. Ozone is an important gas in the atmosphere that protects life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. To measure total ozone accurately, satellites must be carefully calibrated.

However, small differences exist between measurements from two OMPS instruments: one on NOAA-20 and the other on Suomi NPP. These differences happen because the NOAA-20 instrument did not receive the same post-launch adjustments that were applied to the Suomi NPP instrument.

To make the data more consistent, we applied a method called 'soft calibration' to the NOAA-20 measurements. This process uses the well-calibrated data from Suomi NPP to adjust the NOAA-20 data in two steps. First, we correct the central (nadir) part of the satellite’s view, and then we use that correction to adjust the rest of the data across the satellite’s field of view.

The improved product shows much better agreement between the two satellites and removes artificial patterns in the data. This makes the new data more reliable for monitoring global ozone levels over time.