Antarctic Tropospheric Chemistry Investigation (ANTCI) 2003 overview

The Antarctic Tropospheric Chemistry Investigation (ANTCI) was carried out from late November to December 2003 with both extended ground-based and tethered balloon studies at Amundsen Scott Station, South Pole. ANTCI 2003 was the first of two Antarctic field studies with the primary goal of further exploring the active photochemistry of the South Pole region that was first identified in the previous Investigation of Sulfur Chemistry in the Antarctic Troposphere (ISCAT) program. Since ISCAT was fully ground-based, ANTCI 2003 goals included expanding chemical studies both vertically upward to investigate mixing and horizontally to better understand large-scale plateau NOx production and transport. Thus, in addition to ground-based experiments at South Pole, Twin Otter aircraft sampling took place out to hundreds of kilometers in several directions from the South Pole. These were designed to specifically address the issue of how representative past South Pole chemical measurements are of the surrounding high plateau region. The Twin Otter was also used to make transects along the coast both north and south of McMurdo Station. The present paper summarizes the overall setting and results of this investigation and highlights the many new findings that were obtained.