Development of the ACE-FTS Climatological Data Set for the period of 2004-2009

The Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment-Fourier Transform (ACE-FTS) aboard the Canadian satellite SCISAT (launched in August 2003) was designed to investigate the composition of the upper troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere. ACE-FTS utilizes solar occultation to measure temperature and pressure as well as vertical profiles of over thirty different chemical species including; O3, H2O, CH4, N2O, CO, NO, NO2, N2O5, HNO3, HCl, ClONO2, CFC-11, CFC-12, and HF. Global coverage for each species is obtained approximately over one year and with a vertical resolution of typically 3-4 km. A quality-controlled climatology has been created for each of these 14 baseline species, where individual profiles are averaged over the period of 2004-2009. Measurements used are from the ACE-FTS version 2.2 data set including updates for O3 and N2O5. The climatological fields are provided on a monthly and seasonal basis (DJF, MAM, JJA, SON) at 5 degree latitude and equivalent latitude spacing and on 33 pressure surfaces (31 of which are defined by the Chemistry Climate Model validation activity). The equivalent latitudes are derived from the GEOS-5 analyses interpolated to each ACE occultation. The climatological products will be made available through the ACE website.