MARS OZONE - MARINER-9 REVISITED

The efficacy of the UV reflectance spectroscopy technique used by Mari ner 9 to remotely measure ozone abundance at Mars is discussed, Due to temporal and spatial variability in cloud and dust amount, previously inferred ozone abundances could be underestimated by a factor of 3. U ntil the large uncertainty in cloud and dust scattering properties and opacities can be reduced, the ozone abundance inferred by the reflect ance spectroscopy technique will always have significant uncertainty. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.