Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group

Derivation of temperature and pressure from submillimetric limb observations

Not Accessible

Your library or personal account may give you access

Abstract

We demonstrate the feasibility of retrieval of temperature and pressure profiles from spaceborne limb-sounding spectroscopic measurements in the submillimetric region. Whether these profiles can be retrieved determines whether a submillimetric instrument can be self-sufficient as far as the atmospheric model is concerned or whether complementary sensors in other spectral regions, dedicated to temperature and pressure measurements, are needed. Molecular-oxygen transitions are selected for the purpose of temperature and pressure retrieval on the basis of realistic observational parameters. We use a mathematical model of the retrieval process to evaluate the information content of the spectral features and to study the trade-off between the uncertainty of the retrieved profiles and their vertical resolution. It is shown that, using only one oxygen transition and without any constraint, one can achieve uncertainties of 5% for both temperature and pressure from 10 to ∼40 km of altitude with a vertical resolution of 3 km; above 40 km the vertical resolution needs to be degraded to limit the uncertainties. The possibility of exploiting a priori information is discussed, as well as the effects of external constraints that can be used to improve the quality of the retrieved profiles. The sources of systematic error that need to be considered for the compilation of the total error budget are also evaluated.

© 1999 Optical Society of America

Full Article  |  PDF Article
More Like This
Retrieval of vertical constituents and temperature profiles from passive submillimeter wave limb observations of the Martian atmosphere: a feasibility study

Joachim Urban, Karin Dassas, François Forget, and Philippe Ricaud
Appl. Opt. 44(12) 2438-2455 (2005)

Simultaneous retrievals of temperature and volume mixing ratio constituents from nonoxygen Odin submillimeter radiometer bands

Philippe Baron, Frank Merino, and Donal Murtagh
Appl. Opt. 40(33) 6102-6110 (2001)

Tomographic retrieval of atmospheric parameters from infrared limb emission observations

Tilman Steck, Michael Höpfner, Thomas von Clarmann, and Udo Grabowski
Appl. Opt. 44(16) 3291-3301 (2005)

Cited By

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Figures (14)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Figure files are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Tables (1)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Article tables are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Equations (19)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Equations are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Select as filters


Select Topics Cancel
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved