Analysis of historical grating spectra: Jungfraujoch atmospheric database extended back to 1977

Historical solar spectra recorded at the Jungfraujoch station with a high-resolution grating spectrometer have been re-analyzed to derive total columns of a series of atmospheric gases. This instrument, built and operated by the University of Liège (Belgium), was used in the Sixties and Seventies to record two solar spectrum atlases extending from the near-UV to the near-IR. From 1977 to 1989, it was also regularly used to record narrow spectral intervals in the mid-infrared, encompassing absorption lines of gases of atmospheric interest, e.g. CH4, HF, HCl, H2O, N2O, NO2, C2H6, O3 and CO. More than 10 thousand spectra were recorded during this period. The total columns derived from these grating spectra have been combined with the FTIR columns derived at the Jungfraujoch since the mid-1980s, in order to derive the temporal evolution of various target gases for the period 1977-2011.