Observation of Middle Atmosphere in Río Gallegos NDACC site, Argentina

WOLFRAM ELIAN; SALVADOR JACOBO; ORTE .F.; RAUL DELIA; SOPHIE GODIN-BEEKMANN; HIDEAKI NAKANE; EDUARDO QUEL

Isla de La Reunión

Simposio; 2011 NDACC Symposium; 2011

Université de la Reunion

Since spring 2005 the Lidar Division of CEILAP, joined with French and Japanese researchers has been monitoring atmospheric parameters using lidar technologies in southern most continental part of South America. The Río Gallegos experimental site is located in South Patagonia (51º 55’S, 69º 14’W), in subpolar region and it is a convenient monitoring site of the atmosphere in the southern hemisphere. This experimental site operates a differential absorption lidar instrument (DIAL) for the measurement of ozone vertical distribution. This instrument is part of Network Data for Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). The altitude range of the ozone measurement is 14-45 km, which provides the opportunity to monitor the perturbations due to the passage of stratospheric polar air over Río Gallegos. Systematic stratospheric ozone profile measurement has been carried on in this experimental site since 2005. We identified three mayor perturbation of ozone hole over the stratospheric ozone profile in Río Gallegos. Approach of polar vortex during late winter, overpass of ozone hole in middle spring and dilution process during late spring change the shape and content of stratospheric ozone profile and by consequences the solar UV. In 2006 we began to obtain other products such as aerosol content and temperature profile in the stratosphere. The determination of temperature measurements from the Rayleigh scattering is an important remote sensing technique for obtaining stratospheric profiles. In this paper we showed the technique to measure temperature profiles in the stratosphere between 15-60 km altitude. The inversion temperature from photoncounting is detected from light scattered by the Rayleigh line at 355 nm generated from a laser  Quantel YG-980. An analysis of the errors involved in the inversion process and analysis of a case of study is showed for the period 2005-2007. The results presented in this paper are validated through intercomparisons with measurements made by HIRDLS instrument (High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder) onboard the NASA AURA satellite platform, radiosounding and NCEP database. Currently the site is part of the UVO3Patagonia in collaboration with the laboratory of Ozone and UV Radiation in the city of Punta Arenas, Chile distant 200 km