Balloon observations of organic and inorganic chlorine in the stratosphere: the role of HClO4 production on sulfate aerosols

Simultaneous observations of stratospheric organic and inorganic chlorine were made in September 1993 out of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, using JPL balloon-borne MkIV interferometer. Between 15 and 20 km, a significant fraction (20-60%) of the inorganic chlorine could not be accounted for by the sum of measured HCl, ClONO2, and HOCl. Laboratory measurements of the reaction of ClO radicals on sulfuric acid solutions have indicated that, along with HCl, small amounts of perchloric acid, HClO4, were formed. Very little is known about the fate of HClO4 in the stratosphere and we use a photochemical box model to determine the impact of this new species on the partitioning of inorganic chlorine in the stratosphere. Assuming that HClO4 is photochemically stable, it is shown that in the enhanced aerosol loading conditions resulting from Mt. Pinatubo's eruption, HClO4 could represent a significant reservoir of chlorine in the lower stratosphere, sequestering up to 0.2 ppbv (or 50%) of the total inorganic chlorine at 16 km. The occurrence of this new species could bring to closure the inorganic chlorine budget deficiency made apparent by recent ER-2 aircraft in situ measurements of HCl.

Practical example of the correction of Fourier-transform spectra for detector nonlinearity

HgCdTe photoconductive detectors can display a nonlinear response when illuminated. In interferometric applications, this behavior must be accounted for in the data transformation process to avoid errors in the measurement of the spectral distribution of the incident radiation. A model for the distortion of the interferogram is proposed and applied to solar observations made by the Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) Fourier-transform spectrometer during orbital sunrise and sunset from the Space Shuttle. Empirical estimation of the dc current level is necessary for this instrument, and satisfactory nonlinearity correction is obtained for several of the primary ATMOS optical filters. For ATMOS broadband optical filters that cover more than one half the alias bandwidth, the model is inadequate because of the presence of antialiasing electronic filters within the instrument, and it is necessary to resort to estimation and subtraction of the residual baseline offset. In either case the remaining base line offsets are typically smaller than 1%, which is satisfactory, although offset remains a significant systematic source of error in the estimation of the abundance of telluric and solar constituents from the spectra.