In this study, the high-resolution Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is used to detect the concentrations of nitric acid (HNO₃) in the atmosphere above the Hefei site. The vertical profiles and total columns of HNO₃ are retrieved from the mid-infrared solar absorption spectra using the optimal estimation method. The vertical profiles and time series of the total columns of atmospheric HNO₃ are obtained over the entire year of 2017. Further, the characteristics of the seasonal variation of HNO₃, sensitivity altitude of concentration detection, averaging kernels of retrieved profiles, and degrees of freedom are analyzed. The vertical profiles of atmospheric HNO₃ in different seasons denote that the HNO₃ concentrations are higher at an altitude of 20--30 km in the stratosphere and that they are lower in the troposphere. Furthermore, the total columns of HNO₃ exhibit obvious seasonal variations, with a maximum in spring and minimum in winter. The amplitude of the seasonal variations is 9.82×10 ¹⁵ molecule/cm ². The data products obtained from the Aura MLS satellite are selected for performing comparison with the ground-based data to validate the measurements of the ground-based FTIR using independent data. The comparison results denote that the ground-based remote sensing and satellite observations display a consistent seasonal HNO₃ variability. The ground-based data exhibits a good agreement with the satellite data with a high correlation coefficient of 0.83 even though the partial columns of the satellite data are lower than the corresponding ground-based total columns. The observation results indicate the reliability and accuracy of the ground-based FTIR for observing the temporal and spatial distributions of the atmospheric HNO₃.