Methane Profiles at 32°N from Infrared Absorption Measurements on Project Stratoprobe

Abstract

The results presented here were obtained from interferograms recorded at an altitude of 40 km during the sunset period of the Stratoprobe VI balloon flight from Palestine, Texas (32°N latitude) on Nov. 8, 1978. The interferometer, built by Bomem Inc., has a resolution of 0.05 cm-1 un-apodized, and has been described by Buijs et al.(1980). For the Stratoprobe balloon flights series several modifications were made. A sun tracker was added to the instrument to improve the tracking provided by the solar table on the gondola. The installation of an electronic numerical filter reduced the data rate by a factor of 31, providing 5100 samples from each one-sided interferogram. The time required for one interferometer scan was 83 seconds. Interferograms were recorded in the 1840-1990 cm-1 and 2860-3000 cm-1 regions simultaneously.