Mesospheric CO above Troll station, Antarctica observed by a ground based microwave radiometer

Abstract

This paper presents mesospheric carbon monoxide (CO) data acquired by the ground-based microwave radiometer of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS radiometer) stationed at Troll station in Antarctica (72° S, 2.5° E, 1270 m a.s.l.). The dataset covers the period from February 2008 to January 2010, however, due to very low CO concentrations below approximately 80 km altitude in summer, profiles are only presented during the Antarctic winter. CO is measured for approximately 2 h each day and profiles are retrieved approximately every half hour. The retrieved profiles, covering the pressure range from 1 to 0.01 hPa (approximately 48 to 80 km), are compared to measurements from Microwave Limb Sounder on the Aura satellite (Aura/MLS) and Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model with Specified Dynamics (SD-WACCM). This intercomparison reveals a low bias of 0.5 to 1 ppmv at 0.1 hPa (approximately 64 km) and 2.5 to 3.5 ppmv at 0.01 hPa (approximately 80 km) of the BAS microwave radiometer compared to both reference datasets. One explanation for this low bias could be the known high bias of MLS which is on the same order of magnitude. The ground based radiometer shows high and significant correlation (coefficients higher than 0.9/0.7 compared to MLS/SD-WACCM) at all altitudes compared with both reference datasets. The dataset can be accessed under http://dx.doi.org/10/mhq.