Summary of the Polar AVE Mission

The Polar Aura Validation Mission took place from Jan 25, 2005 to Feb. 9, 2005 out of Portsmouth, N. H. The mission consisted of 13 instruments loaded on the NASA DC-8. The instrument payload included in situ chemical measurements of H2O, O3, CO, N2O, HNO3, and NO2. There were two ozone lidar measurements, aerosol lidar measurements and temperature lidar measurements. The German ASUR instrument provided emote microwave measurements of ClO, HCl, HNO3 and N2O were provided by, while the NCAR FTIR provided IR spectra using solar occultation. The mission included the DIAL up-down looking ozone/aerosol lidar and the AROTAL up looking ozone/temperature lidar. The polar vortex cooperated with us by extending southward over Hudson Bay during most of the mission period. We made several flights into the vortex and at mid-latitudes along the Aura measurement track and the lidars observed extensive ozone loss, PSCs. The remote microwave measurements observed high values of ClO and HCl depletion. Vertical profiling flights for OMI were made off the coast and in the continental regions.