Stratospheric aerosol observations from a balloon-borne polarimetric experiment

Abstract

This paper documents a balloon-borne experiment vis-a-vis the observation of the radiance and polarization ratio of sunlight scattered by the stratospheric aerosol at near-infrared wavelengths. Described are the results and preliminary analysis of the first flight, on 15 Dec. 1983, at an altitude of 20 km. The observations, particularly the polarization features, are consistent with single scattering calculations for spherical particles with a mean radius of ~0.3µm and with a refractive index of 1.45 at 0.85µm; thus, the presence of sulfuric acid aerosol is corroborated.