Satellite and ground-based ozone observing campaigns have both been operating for the last 40 years and there is now a vast amount of data, with which to diagnose variability and trends in stratospheric ozone. Despite this wealth of information, we cannot currently determine the status of long-term trends in ozone with confidence, and the way in which data from disparate sources are merged is a leading reason why uncertainties remain high. To build confidence, progress must be made in data merging to build robust long-term records.

This project aims to build a rigorous state-of-the-art statistical framework to overcome limitations currently associated with merging multiple instrument data sets with different observing characteristics and, ultimately, pave the way to a unified ozone data set for stratospheric and tropospheric ozone, with realistic uncertainty estimates, which can then be used to make robust conclusions about the state of atmospheric ozone.