START08

PAN and other Trace Hydrohalocarbon ExpeRiment (PANTHER)

PANTHER mounted on the NASA DC-8 half rack. It has also flown on the NASA WB-57. Our other airborne GC’s include ACATS, LACE and UCATS. They have flown on the ER-2, Altair, and high altitude balloon platforms.

PANTHER: 200 lbs, 6-channel GC (gas chromatograph).

3 ECD (electron capture detectors), packed columns (OV-101, Porpak-Q, molecular sieve).
1 ECD with a TE (thermal electric) cooled RTX-200 capillary column.
2-channel MSD (mass selective detector). The MSD analyses two independent samples concentrated onto TE cooled Haysep traps, then passed through two temperature programmed RTX-624 capillary columns.

Calibration: With the exception of PAN, all channels of chromatography are normalized to a stable in-flight calibration gas references to NOAA scales. The PAN data is normalized to an in-flight PAN source of ≈ 100 ppt with ±5 % reproducibility. This source is generated by efficient photolytic conversion of NO in the presence of acetone. Detector non-linearity is taken out by lab calibrations for all molecules.

Co-Investigators: Fred L. Moore (303-497-7068, fred.moore@noaa.gov), Dale F. Hurst, James W. Elkins, Geoffrey S. Dutton, Bradley D. Hall, and J. David Nance, Colorado University-Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and/or NOAA-Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), Boulder, CO.

Compounds Measured on Past Missions:

ECD channels: N2O, SF6, CCl2F2 (CFC-12),) CCl3F (CFC-11), and CBrClF2 (halon-1211) injected every 70 seconds, and H2, CH4, CO, CCl4, CH3CCl3 (methyl chloroform) and PAN (peroxyl acetyl nitrate) injected every 140 seconds. The width of a sample load on an ECD channel is only 3 seconds, allowing this data set to correlate well with other fast measurements.

MSD channels: The methyl halides CH3I, CH3Br, CH3Cl, the sulfur compounds COS, CS2, the hydrochlorofluorocarbons CHClF2 (HCFC-22), C2H3Cl2F (HCFC-141b), C2H3ClF2 (HCFC-142b), and the hydrofluorocarbon C2H2F4 (HFC-134a) are injected every 180 seconds with 150 seconds sample load width. This data set correlates with a time average of other fast measurements.

TDL Channel: Water Vapor (Currently relocated back in UCATS.)