Validation of stratospheric ClO measurements from the Millimeter‐wave Atmospheric Sounder (MAS)

Abstract

During three missions in 1992, 1993, and 1994, the Millimeter‐wave Atmospheric Sounder (MAS) measured volume mixing ratio profiles of stratospheric chlorine monoxide (ClO) at 204 GHz from the space shuttle. Owing to the space shuttle orbit, measurements were restricted to tropical and midlatitudes. We compared zonal mean profiles to correlative ClO measurements by an airborne 649 GHz radiometer, a ground‐based 278 GHz instrument on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and Version 4 ClO profiles by the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS). The agreement between MAS and all the other instruments was well within the combined error bars over a pressure range of 0.4–40 hPa. Further comparisons of MAS and MLS day‐night difference profiles produced an agreement of typically better than 0.1 ppbv. A detailed analysis proved that this agreement was independent of the a priori information that was used for the retrieval of the different data sets.