Estimation of Polar Stratospheric Cloud Infrared Extinction Climatology Using Visible Satellite Observations

Abstract

Polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) provide surfaces for heterogeneous processes which can dramatically alter the normal partitioning of odd nitrogen and chlorine families in the winter polar stratospheres (Solomon, 1990; Poole et al., 1992), setting up conditions for significant ozone depletion as manifested in the springtime Antarctic ozone hole. The spatial and temporal distribution of PSCs is important for parameterizing PSC occurrence in multidimensional photochemical models whose use is essential for fully understanding observed Antarctic ozone losses as well as for accessing the possibility of a similar phemonenon occurring in the future in the Arctic. The Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement (SAM) II sensor, a single-channel (1 µm) photometer launched into a Sun-synchronous orbit aboard the Nimbus 7 satellite in October 1978, provided a unique database to establish the climatology of PSCs. Poole and Pitts (1994) used the record of high-latitude aerosol extinction obtained by SAM II from 1979-1989 to establish the climatology of PSC occurrences in the Arctic and Antarctic. Unfortunately, little information about PSC composition or type was detectable from the single-wavelength SAM II data.