Satellite Infrared Spectrometer , instrument

Measurements either from the ground or from satellites have been a major contribution to this effort, and satellite instruments such as LIMS (Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere) on the Nimbus 7 satellite (I) in 1979 and ATMOS (Atmospheric Trace Molecular Spectroscopy instrument), a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer aboard Spacelab 3 (2) in 1987, have produced valuable data sets that still challenge our models. But these remote techniques are not always adequate for resolving photochemistry on the small scale, particularly in the lower stratosphere. In some cases, the altitude resolution provided by remote techniques has been insufficient to provide unambiguous concentrations of trace gas species at specific altitudes. Insufficient altitude resolution is a handicap particularly for those trace species with large gradients in either altitude or latitude. Often only the most abundant species can be measured. Many of the reactive trace gases, the key species in most chemical transformations, have small abundances that are difficult to detect accurately from remote platforms. 

Measurements of the gaseous sulfur dioxide released were obtained with the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS Krueger, 1983) and with the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Spectrometer (SBUV Heath et d., 1983), both carried on the Nimbus 7 satellite. Three instruments on board the Solar Mesosphere Explorer (SME) also revealed features of the cloud the Infrared Radiometer measured the thermal emission from the aerosols, while the Visible and Near Infrared Spectrometers measured the backscat-tered solar radiation. The three instruments are limbscanning and view the atmosphere along the track of the sunsynchronous polar orbit (Barth et d., 1983 Thomas et d., 1983). Ground based and airborne spectro-photometric measurements of sulfur dioxide have also been carried out (Evans and Kerr, 1983). 

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