Balloon Intercomparison Campaigns: Results of remote sensing measurements of HCl

All of the techniques used to measure stratospheric HCl during the two BIC campaigns involved high resolution infrared spectroscopy. The balloon-borne instruments included five different spectrometers, three operating in the solar absorption mode and two in emission (at distinctly different wavelengths). Ground-based and aircraft correlative measurements were made close to the balloon locations, again by near-infrared spectroscopy.Within this set of results, comparisons between different techniques (absorption vs emission) viewing the same airmass (i.e., on the same gondola) were possible, as were comparisons between the same technique used on different gondolas spaced closely in time and location. The final results yield a mean profile of concentration of HC1 between 18 and 40 km altitude; an envelope of ±15% centered on this profile encompasses all of the results within one standard deviation of their individual mean values. The absolute accuracy of the final profile is estimated to be no worse than 10%. It is concluded also that the measurement techniques for HCl have reached a level of performance where a precision of 10% to 15% can be confidently expected.