References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

1680-7324

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-13-7405-2013

ACE-FTS observations of acetonitrile in the lower stratosphere

Harrison

J. J.

¹ Bernath

P. F.

¹ ²

Department of Chemistry, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, UK

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23529, USA

02 08 2013

13 15 7405 7413

2013

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/7405/2013/acp-13-7405-2013.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/7405/2013/acp-13-7405-2013.pdf

This work reports the first infrared satellite remote-sensing measurements of acetonitrile (CH3CN) in the Earth's atmosphere using solar occultation measurements made by the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier transform spectrometer (ACE-FTS) between 2004 and 2011. The retrieval scheme uses new quantitative laboratory spectroscopic measurements of acetonitrile (Harrison and Bernath, 2012). Although individual ACE-FTS profile measurements are dominated by measurement noise, median profiles in 10° latitude bins show a steady decline in volume mixing ratio from ~150 ppt (parts per trillion) at 11.5 km to < 40 ppt at 25.5–29.5 km. These new measurements agree well with the scant available air- and balloon-borne data in the lower stratosphere. An acetonitrile stratospheric lifetime of 73 ± 20 yr has been determined.

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