A pilot study for predicting ozone amounts for the general public in southern Chile

During 1994/95 a UK Overseas Development Administration (now Department for International Development - DFID) funded project was undertaken to predict ozone amount over Punta Arenas in southern Chile. A low-cost satellite receiver was installed to receive the digital data stream from the NOAA series of weather satellites. The ozone channel of the TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder instrument on the NOAA satellites was used to obtain maps of stratospheric ozone for the area around Punta Arenas in near real time. Also, a simple model was developed to predict the amount of column ozone from the forecast 100 hPa temperatures obtained from the UK Meteorological Office. These techniques used together made it possible to issue timely warnings to the general public of Punta Arenas before the Antarctic ozone hole moved across southern South America during the Austral spring.