Simultaneous measurement of minor stratospheric constituents with emission far‐infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

The vertical mixing ratio profiles of H2O, HDO, O3, heavy ozone, HF, HCl, HCN, and OH in the stratosphere are retrieved from high‐resolution far‐infrared emission spectra. These spectra were obtained with a balloon‐borne Fourier transform spectrometer in the spring of 1979 at 32°N. The nonlinear least squares fit method is used in the analysis. The results are obtained relative to the O2 mixing ratio, whose emission features can be found in the same spectra. The retrieval of OH together with other species should be particularly significant for the study of upper stratospheric photochemistry, although the errors are relatively large: 28% for OH and 16–19% for other species.