Premium
The 1994 northern midlatitude budget of stratospheric chlorine derived from ATMOS/ATLAS‐3 observations
Author(s) -
Zander R.,
Mahieu E.,
Gunson M. R.,
Abrams M. C.,
Chang A. Y.,
Abbas M.,
Aellig C.,
Engel A.,
Goldman A.,
Irion F. W.,
Kämpfer N.,
Michelson H. A.,
Newchurch M. J.,
Rinsland C. P.,
Salawitch R. J.,
Stiller G. P.,
Toon G. C.
Publication year - 1996
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 - 10.1029/96gl01792
Subject(s) - stratosphere , mixing ratio , atmospheric sciences , atmospheric chemistry , chlorine , environmental science , middle latitudes , ozone , latitude , meteorology , climatology , physics , geology , chemistry , geodesy , organic chemistry
Volume mixing ratio (VMR) profiles of the chlorine‐bearing gases HCl, ClONO 2 , CCl 3 F, CCl 2 F 2 , CHClF 2 , CCl 4 , and CH 3 Cl have been measured between 3 and 49° northern‐ and 65 to 72° southern latitudes with the Atmospheric Trace MOlecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) instrument during the ATmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS)‐3 shuttle mission of 3 to 12 November 1994. A subset of these profiles obtained between 20 and 49°N at sunset, combined with ClO profiles measured by the Millimeter‐wave Atmospheric Sounder (MAS) also from aboard ATLAS‐3, measurements by balloon for HOCl, CH 3 CCl 3 and C 2 Cl 3 F 3 , and model calculations for COClF indicates that the mean burden of chlorine, Cl TOT , was equal to (3.53±0.10) ppbv (parts per billion by volume), 1‐sigma, throughout the stratosphere at the time of the ATLAS 3 mission. This is some 37% larger than the mean 2.58 ppbv value measured by ATMOS within the same latitude zone during the Spacelab 3 flight of 29 April to 6 May 1985, consitent with an exponential growth rate of the chlorine loading in the stratosphere equal to 3.3%/yr or a linear increase of 0.10 ppbv/yr over the Spring‐1985 to Fall‐1994 time period. These findings are in agreement with both the burden and increase of the main anthropogenic Cl‐bearing source gases at the surface during the 1980s, confirming that the stratospheric chlorine loading is primarily of anthropogenic origin.