Shortly after the publication of Fishman et al. [2003], in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), an article was published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions (ACPD) by de Laat and Aben [2003] that challenged some of the findings in Fishman et al. [2003]. In that paper, they claimed that "it is possible to obtain a tropospheric O3 column that is very similar to what is being presented in Fishman et al. [2003], solely based on the Logan [1999] tropospheric O3 climatology and an estimate for the tropopause heights without using satellite data." Although works appearing in ACPD go through an initial peer-review screening, "subsequent interactive discussion and public commenting by the referees, authors and other members of the scientific community is expected to enhance quality control for papers published in ACP beyond the limits of the traditional closed peer-review," according to the guidelines established by the European Geophysical Union, the scientific body that oversees the editorial process for these journals. As can be seen in Figure 10 and the accompanying table, the tropospheric ozone distribution of Logan [1999] is considerably different from what appears in Fishman et al. [2003], especially in northern India, one of the key regional findings reported in that study. A more detailed analysis of the fallacies in de Laat and Aben's reasoning is available in Fishman [2003] [PDF].
Furthermore it is notable that de Laat and Aben's manuscript was never published in ACP, because of the public comments put forth in the discussion phase of ACPD.

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