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Evidence for upper stratospheric aerosols from balloon‐borne mass spectrometers
Author(s) -
Krieger A.,
Arnold F.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/92gl02633
Subject(s) - aerosol , mass spectrometry , balloon , nucleation , meteor (satellite) , sodium , environmental science , ion , astrobiology , atmosphere of earth , atmospheric sciences , atmosphere (unit) , materials science , geology , meteorology , physics , medicine , quantum mechanics , metallurgy , cardiology , thermodynamics
Strong evidence for the presence of aerosols well above the stratospheric H 2 SO 4 /H 2 O‐aerosol layer was obtained by balloon‐borne mass spectrometer measurements of ambient ions. The instrument was improved with respect to the detection of gaseous sodium compounds. From our measurements very low upper limits of gas phase sodium compounds (2×10 3 cm −3 around 40 km) could relieably be inferred. This supports the hypothesis that all gas phase metal compounds from meteor ablation are efficiently removed by heterogeneous nucleation involving preexistent aerosols which may be identified as meteoritic or spaceflight debris.