Identification

Title

Meteoric smoke and H2SO4 aerosols in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere

Abstract

Meteoric smoke has traditionally been understood as a passive tracer which follows the global mesospheric circulation. Smoke extinction measured by the Solar Occultation For Ice Experiment, however, shows that while this is true in the middle to upper mesosphere (pressure <similar to 0.2hPa), it is not true near the stratopause. Here the expected winter increase begins 3months earlier than in models. We suggest that the autumn extinction increase is due to H2SO4 condensing above the nominal stratospheric aerosol layer (similar to 5hPa). This is possible due to lowering of the H2SO4 saturation vapor pressure when the acid is neutralized through combination with meteoric metals. The appearance of neutralized H2SO4 aerosol in autumn is associated with the seasonal decrease in temperature. The combination of meteoric smoke and neutralized H2SO4 aerosols explains the observations and supports previous suggestions that H2SO4 could condense above the nominal stratospheric sulfate layer.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7319xpz

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2017-01-28T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact