MIDINFRARED MEASUREMENTS OF THE ATMOSPHERIC EMISSION OVER THE SOUTH-POLE USING A RADIOMETRICALLY CALIBRATED FOURIER-TRANSFORM SPECTROMETER

We conducted year-round measurements of the downwelling atmospheric in frared emission over the South Pole in 1992. The instrument covered th e 550-1600-wave-number region with 1-wave-number resolution. We calcul ated the water vapor content for clear-sky cases and found a good corr elation with the surface temperature, with values ranging from 0.2 to 0.8 mm. Ozone-sonde profiles were compared with total column abundance s of O-3 retrieved from the spectra. The experiment is explained in de tail, including the instrumentation, calibration, and retrieval method s used. The calibrated spectra contain information about several trace gases, water, clouds, temperature profiles, and aerosols. (C) 1996 Op tical Society of America