On the Assessment and Uncertainty of Atmospheric Trace Gas Burden Measurements with High Resolution Infrared Solar Occultation Spectra from Space by the ATMOS Experiment

The Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) instrument is a high resolution Fourier transform spectrometer that measures atmospheric composition from low Earth orbit with infrared solar occultation sounding in the limb geometry. Following an initial flight in 1985, ATMOS participated in the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science (ATLAS) 1, 2, and 3 Space Shuttle missions in 1992, 1993, and 1994 yielding a total of 440 occultation measurements over a nine year period. The suite of more than thirty atmospheric trace gases profiled includes CO2, O3, N2O, CH4, H2O, NO, NO2, HNO3, HCl, HF, ClONO2, CCl3F, CCl2F2, CHF2Cl, and N2O5. The analysis method has been revised throughout the mission years culminating in the 'version 2' data set. The spectroscopic error analysis is described in the context of supporting the precision estimates reported with the profiles; in addition, systematic uncertainties assessed from the quality of the spectroscopic database are described and tabulated for comparisons with other experiments.