I have been using EAC4 data to parametrize the atmospheric composition for radiative transfer modelling and I have a question about interpreting the total column values in comparison to the vertical profiles of certain molecules.
I will explain in an example. There is a total column mass density for ozone and a dataset of ozone mass ratio on model levels.
When I parse this multi-level data, convert it to altitudes and compute the total column mass density, I get the same value as the total column density that is offered here. That is of course expected.
However, the vertical profile extends only to ca. 52km altitude. And here my question arises. The physical atmosphere of course extends beyond 52km and so I am now wondering, if the total column value that is available in the EAC4 data should be considered as integrated to infinity or as integrated to 52km altitude.
For clarity, here is a plot of the molar fraction of ozone of the AFGL-1986 US-Standard atmosphere and the data from EAC4.
In other words, the question is, if I want to model an atmosphere up to 120km, should I consider the the molar fraction of ozone above 52km to be zero, or should I consider a distribution similar to AFGL and actually downscale the EAC4 data, so that the integral to 120km matches the TC value in EAC4?
