Kohlhepp, R., Ruhnke, R., Chipperfield, M. P., De Mazière, M., Notholt, J., Barthlott, S., Batchelor, R. L., Blatherwick, R. D., Blumenstock, Th., Coffey, M. T., Demoulin, P., Fast, H., Feng, W., Goldman, A., Griffith, D. W. T., Hamann, K., Hannigan, J. W., Hase, F., Jones, N. B., Kagawa, A., Kaiser, I., Kasai, Y., Kirner, O., Kouker, W., Lindenmaier, R., Mahieu, E., Mittermeier, R. L., Monge-Sanz, B., Morino, I., Murata, I., Nakajima, H., Palm, M., Paton-Walsh, C., Raffalski, U., Reddmann, Th., Rettinger, M., Rinsland, C. P., Rozanov, E., Schneider, M., Senten, C., Servais, C., Sinnhuber, B.-M., Smale, D., Strong, K., Sussmann, R., Taylor, J. R., Vanhaelewyn, G., Warneke, T., Whaley, C., Wiehle, M., and Wood, S. W.

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 3527-3556, doi:10.5194/acp-12-3527-2012

Time series of total column abundances of hydrogen chloride (HCl), chlorine nitrate (ClONO2), and hydrogen fluoride (HF) were determined from ground-based Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra recorded at 17 sites belonging to the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) and located between 80.05° N and 77.82° S. By providing such a near-global overview on ground-based measurements of the two major stratospheric chlorine reservoir species, HCl and ClONO2, the present study is able to confirm the decrease of the atmospheric inorganic chlorine abundance during the last few years. This decrease is expected following the 1987 Montreal Protocol and its amendments and adjustments, where restrictions and a subsequent phase-out of the prominent anthropogenic chlorine source gases (solvents, chlorofluorocarbons) were agreed upon to enable a stabilisation and recovery of the stratospheric ozone layer. The atmospheric fluorine content is expected to be influenced by the Montreal Protocol, too, because most of the banned anthropogenic gases also represent important fluorine sources. But many of the substitutes to the banned gases also contain fluorine so that the HF total column abundance is expected to have continued to increase during the last few years. The measurements are compared with calculations from five different models: the two-dimensional Bremen model, the two chemistry-transport models KASIMA and SLIMCAT, and the two chemistry-climate models EMAC and SOCOL. Thereby, the ability of the models to reproduce the absolute total column amounts, the seasonal cycles, and the temporal evolution found in the FTIR measurements is investigated and inter-compared. This is especially interesting because the models have different architectures. The overall agreement between the measurements and models for the total column abundances and the seasonal cycles is good.