Study of Atmospheric Trace Gas Amounts at the Stara Zagora Ground-Based Station.

Since the end of August 1999 twilight daily measurements of scattered zenith sky radiation have been carried out at Stara Zagora for determination of trace gas amounts, deploying GASCOD instrument. It was developed at the Institute of Atmospheric Science and Climate, Bologna. Reference spectra are obtained at midday. The instrument, appearing a UV-VIS spectrometer, registers the zenith sky spectra automatically and 410 nm to 460 nm spectral interval is used to retrieve NO2 and O3 slant column amounts (SCA) by application of the DOAS methodology. The spectral analysis uses minimum least squares fitting of the cross sections at the expected absorbers to a logarithm of the twilight spectrum and a reference spectrum. The accumulated time series show the well-known typical seasonal variations, caused by the solar insulation. The residual time series of the removed semi-annual seasonal cycles from the measured original series show many different variations, with short periods up to inter-annual variations. Single spikes of SCA are detected and we consider them a result of over-passing weather fronts and/or lightning. Variations of SCA with time scale up to about 10 days are the consequence of weather cyclones. Some short-term variations of NO2 and O3 SCA are a result of intensive stratospheric-tropospheric exchange. Other residual time series periods are caused by Rossby waves, by over-passing of the polar vortex filaments. The inter-annual variations can be affected by QBO and NAO. Applying wavelet analysis of the obtained NO2 slant column amount data series, and the total O3 amount obtained by the GOME instrument, during the 23-rd solar cycle maximum, time intervals are found with periods of 27 days on the time scale. The applied cross-correlation analysis demonstrates a phase lag of some days of the NO2 and O3 response to the 27-days solar cycle. The calculated vertical column amounts of NO2 are used for validation of the satellite measurements, e.g. SCIAMACHY NO2 data.