Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

DOI

10.1029/2024JD040990

Publication Title

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres

Volume

129

Issue

13

Pages

e2024JD040990

Abstract

We present an analysis of Antarctic polar winters from 2005 to 2023 as observed by the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE). The unique broad band infrared spectral features in ACE “residual” spectra are used to classify the spectra of polar aerosols by composition into polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) and sulfate aerosols. The spectra of PSCs are further classified into nitric acid trihydrate, supercooled ternary solutions, supercooled nitric acid, ice-mix, and mixtures of PSCs. A breakdown of PSC composition is presented for each year. Antarctic winter seasons with unusual compositions are: 2011, in which volcanic ash mixed with PSCs was observed from July to August; 2019, which experienced a stratospheric warming event; 2020, the PSC season following the Australian Black Summer pyrocumulonimbus event; and 2023, which had unusually large sulfate aerosols following the Honga-Tonga Honga Ha'apai eruption of 2022.

Rights

© 2024. The Authors.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Data Availability

Article states: "ACE‐FTS VMR, imager retrievals and residual spectra can be accessed at https://databace.scisat.ca/level2/ace_v5.2/display_data.php (ACE‐FTS Level 2 Data, 2023) (registration required). The MERRA‐2 data (Gelaro et al., 2017) were obtained from the NASA Earthdata website (GMAO, 2015)."

Original Publication Citation

Lecours, M., Boone, C. D., & Bernath, P. F. (2024). Antarctic polar stratospheric cloud analysis of ACE-FTS data from 2005 to 2023. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 129(13), e2024JD040990. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JD040990

ORCID

0000-0002-1255-396X (Bernath)

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