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Published August 15, 1996 | Published
Journal Article Open

Stratospheric NO and NO_2 abundances from ATMOS Solar-Occultation Measurements

Abstract

Using results from a time-dependent photochemical model to calculate the diurnal variation of NO and NO_2, we have corrected Atmospheric Trace MOlecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) solar-occultation retrievals of the NO and NO_2 abundances at 90° solar zenith angle. Neglecting to adjust for the rapid variation of these gases across the terminator results in potential errors in retrieved profiles of ∼20% for NO_2 and greater than 100% for NO at altitudes below 25 km. Sensitivity analysis indicates that knowledge of the local O_3 and temperature profiles, rather than zonal mean or climatological conditions of these quantities, is required to obtain reliable retrievals of NO and NO_2 in the lower stratosphere. Extremely inaccurate O_3 or temperature values at 20 km can result in 50% errors in retrieved NO or NO_2. Mixing ratios of NO in the mid-latitude, lower stratosphere measured by ATMOS during the November 1994 ATLAS-3 mission compare favorably with in situ ER-2 observations, providing strong corroboration of the reliability of the adjusted space-borne measurements.

Additional Information

Copyright 1996 by the American Geophysical Union. (Received October, 17, 1995; revised March 8, 1996; accepted March 22, 1996.) Paper number 96GL01196. This work was supported in part by the NASA Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling and Analysis Program, NASA/MSFC Earth Sciences and Applications Division contract NAS8-38609, and JPL-959894. Work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology was done under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Partial support was received from NASA grant NAGW-1538 to the California Institute of Technology.

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August 19, 2023
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