Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net 1680-7367 1680-7375 5 1 2005 10.5194/acpd-5-863-2005 http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/5/863/2005/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/5/863/2005/acpd-5-863-2005.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/5/863/2005/acpd-5-863-2005.pdf 863 874 2005-02-16 A 2003 stratospheric aerosol extinction and PSC climatology from GOMOS measurements on Envisat F. Vanhellemont D. Fussen C. Bingen E. Kyrölä J. Tamminen V. Sofieva S. Hassinen P. Verronen A. Seppälä J. L. Bertaux A. Hauchecorne F. Dalaudier O. Fanton d’Andon G. Barrot A. Mangin B. Theodore M. Guirlet J. B. Renard R. Fraisse P. Snoeij R. Koopman L. Saavedra Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Brussels, Belgium Finnish Meteorological Institute, Earth Observation, Helsinki, Finland Service d’Aéronomie du CNRS, Verrieres-le-Buisson cedex, France ACRI-ST, Sophia-Antipolis, France CNRS-LPCE, Orléans, France Astrium SAS, Toulouse cedex, France ESTEC (ESA), Noordwijk, The Netherlands ESRIN (ESA), Frascati, Italy Stratospheric aerosols play an important role in a number of atmospheric issues such as midlatitude ozone depletion, atmospheric dynamics and the Earth radiative budget. Polar stratospheric clouds on the other hand are a crucial factor in the yearly Arctic 5 and Antarctic ozone depletion. It is therefore important to quantify the stratospheric aerosol/PSC abundance. In orbit since March 2002, the GOMOS instrument onboard the European Envisat satellite has provided a vast aerosol extinction data set. In this paper we present an aerosol/PSC climatology that was constructed from this data set, together with a discussion of the results.