First Global Observations of Atmospheric COCIF from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Mission

Carbonyl chlorofluoride (COCIF) is an important reservoir of chlorine and fluorine in the Earth's atmosphere. Satellite-based remote sensing measurements of COCIF, obtained by the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE) for a time period spanning February 2004 through April 2007, have been used in a global distribution study. There is a strong source region for COCIF in the tropical stratosphere near 27 km. A layer of enhanced COCIF spans the low- to mid-stratosphere over all latitudes, with volume mixing ratios of 40-100 parts per trillion by volume, largest in the tropics and decreasing toward the poles. The COCIF volume mixing ratio profiles are nearly zonally symmetric, but they exhibit a small hemispheric asymmetry that likely arises from a hemispheric asymmetry in the parent molecule CCl3 F. Comparisons are made with a set of in situ stratospheric measurements from the mid-1980s and with predictions from a 2-D model.