DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8181184
title: Observations of trace gases in the lowermost stratosphere and upper troposphere from the SPURT aircraft measurement program

description: <strong>Introduction</strong> SPURT (Spurenstofftransport in der Tropopausenregion, trace gas transport in the tropopause region) was an aircraft measurement program funded by the AFO 2000 programme of the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). Eight campaigns (36 flights in total) were conducted between November 2001 and July 2003 to investigate trace gas transport in the extratropical upper troposphere and lowermost stratosphere in all seasons. A wide range of trace gases with different lifetimes and sink/source characteristics were measured in-situ from a Learjet 35A aircraft flying at altitudes up to 13.7 km. The data set is well suited for studies of atmospheric transport, for model validation, and for investigations of seasonal changes in the upper troposphere and lowermost stratosphere as demonstrated in numerous accompanying studies. <strong>Dataset content</strong> In-situ measurements of N<sub>2</sub>O, CH<sub>4</sub>, CO, CO<sub>2</sub>, CFC12, H<sub>2</sub>, SF<sub>6</sub>, NO, NO<sub>y</sub>, O<sub>3</sub> and H<sub>2</sub>O along all flight tracks. Position and meteorological quantities recorded by the aircraft along all flight tracks. Meteorological data from ECMWF analysis fields and derived products such as potential vorticity and equivalent latitude interpolated to all flight tracks. Merge files (extension .mrg) of all observations, aircraft positions and other data merged into one single file per flight at 5 sec temporal resolution. Due to different instrument response times or computer clocks, the individual measurements were typically shifted by several seconds relative to each other. These time shifts are corrected for in the merge files. Ten day backward trajectories started every 12 minutes along the flight tracks computed with <em>Lagranto</em> (doi:10.5194/gmd-8-2569-2015) based on 3-hourly ECMWF IFS analysis/forecast fields. Further information such as flight quicklooks, flight protocols, meteorological reports, etc. All measurement data are provided in NASA/Ames format (https://espo.nasa.gov/content/Ames_Format_Specification_v20), which is a self-explaining ASCII format that can conveniently be read by many software packages, e.g. the nappy library for python. <strong>Quick start guide</strong> Download and unpack the gzip compressed tar file (unpacking generates the two directories <em>images </em>and <em>data</em>) Change to the directory <em>data </em>and open the file index.html with a web browser. This will open a web page providing an overview of the eight campaigns and associated data. For most purposes it will be sufficient to work with the merge files: Change to the <em>data</em> directory and list all merge files by typing "ls */*/*.mrg" (Linux) or "dir *\*\*.mrg" (Windows). <strong>References:</strong> The reference journal article for the SPURT project is <em>Engel, A., Bönisch, H., Brunner, D., Fischer, H., Franke, H., Günther, G., Gurk, C., Hegglin, M., Hoor, P., Königstedt, R., Krebsbach, M., Maser, R., Parchatka, U., Peter, T., Schell, D., Schiller, C., Schmidt, U., Spelten, N., Szabo, T., Weers, U., Wernli, H., Wetter, T., and Wirth, V.: Highly resolved observations of trace gases in the lowermost stratosphere and upper troposphere from the Spurt project: an overview, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 283–301, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-6-283-2006, 2006. </em> Many more scientific publications emerged from the project (see reference list and object identifiers).
description: {"references": ["Engel et al. (2006), Highly resolved observations of trace gases in the lowermost stratosphere and upper troposphere from the Spurt project: an overview, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 283\u2013301, doi:10.5194/acp-6-283-2006", "Boenisch et al. (2011), On the structural changes in the Brewer-Dobson circulation after 2000, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 3937\u20133948, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-3937-2011", "Boenisch et al. (2009), Quantifying transport into the lowermost stratosphere using simultaneous in-situ measurements of SF6 and CO2 , Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 5905\u20135919, doi:10.5194/acp-9-5905-2009", "Fischer et al. (2006), Model simulations and aircraft measurements of vertical, seasonal and latitudinal O3 and CO distributions over Europe, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 339\u2013348, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-6-339-2006", "Gurk et al. (2007), O3 -N2O correlations from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment: Revisiting a diagnostic of transport and chemistry in the stratosphere, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D19301, doi:10.1029/2006jd008281", "Hegglin et al. (2006), Measurements of NO, NOy, N2 O, and O3 during SPURT: implications for transport and chemistry in the lowermost stratosphere, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 1331\u20131350, doi:10.5194/acp-6-1331-2006", "Hegglin et al. (2004), Tracing troposphere-to-stratosphere transport above a mid-latitude deep convective system, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 4, 741\u2013756, doi:10.5194/acp-4-741-2004", "Hegglin et al. (2005), Determination of eddy-diffusivity in the lowermost stratosphere, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L13812, doi:10.1029/2005GL022495", "Hegglin et al. (2008), Validation of ACE-FTS satellite data in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS) using non-coincident measurements, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 1483\u20131499, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-8-1483-2008", "Hoor et al. (2004), Seasonality and extent of extratropical TST derived from in-situ CO measurements during SPURT, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 4, 1427\u20131442, doi:10.5194/acp-4-1427-2004", "Hoor et al. (2005), Tropical and extratropical tropospheric air in the lowermost stratosphere over Europe: A CO-based budget, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L07802, doi:10.1029/2004gl022018", "Krebsbach et al. (2006), Seasonal cycles and variability of O3 and H2O in the UT/LMS during SPURT, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 109\u2013125, doi:10.5194/acp-6-109-2006", "Kunz et al. (2014), Comparison of Fast In situ Stratospheric Hygrometer (FISH) measurements of water vapor in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) with ECMWF (re)analysis data, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 10803\u201310822, doi:10.5194/acp-14-10803-2014", "P\u00e4tz et al. (2006), In-situ comparison of the NOy instruments flown in MOZAIC and SPURT, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 2401\u20132410, doi:10.5194/acp-6-2401-2006"]}