The Canadian Arctic Validation of ACE 2005 campaign is making validation measurements for the ACE satellite mission in the Canadian Arctic from February to April.  A suite of 7 instruments is used to determine total columns (and vertical profiles, where possible) of the 14 ACE baseline target species, atmospheric extinction, temperature, and pressure.  Spectral, as well as trace gas, measurements from ground-based versions of ACE-FTS (PARIS-IR) and ACE-MAESTRO (MAESTRO-G) instruments will assist in assessing the quality of both the Level 1 and Level 2 ACE data under the chemically perturbed conditions found in the springtime Arctic.  Daily measurements are being made during the campaign.  These high temporal resolution results will give to give context to the sparse (in time and space) ACE occultation measurements.

The campaign "re-opened" the Arctic Stratospheric Ozone (AStrO) Observatory (soon to be housing the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL)) facility at Eureka, Nunavut for six weeks of observations during Arctic spring in 2005. This is a time when the perturbed stratospheric conditions can lead to chemical ozone loss.  A combination of on-site instrumentation (ozone lidar (DIAL) and high resolution Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (DA8 FTIR)) and instruments deployed for the campaign (UV/visible spectrometers and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer) were used to make the atmospheric measurements.  The campaign was split into two phases:  the intensive and extensive phases.  The intensive phase took place from February 21 – March 9.  During this time, measurements were made by all instruments and daily ozonesonde flights were launched.  The extensive phase continued from March 10 – April 3 with measurements by the DA8 FTIR, several of the grating UV-Vis spectrometers and weekly ozonesonde flights.

Latitude of occultations within 500 km of Eureka, Nunavut