Atmospheric characterization using ground-based and satellite infrared spectral radiance measurements

 

Authors

William L. Smith — Hampton University
Michael Howard — National Securities Technologies (NsTEC)
Jian Yongxiao — Hampton University

Category

Atmospheric State & Surface

Description

The ASR-related research concerns the development and testing of new atmospheric profiling algorithms to be applied to: (1) ground-based U.S. DOE Atmospheric Sounder Spectrometer for Infrared Spectral Technology (ASSIST) and Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) radiance spectral radiance measurements, and (2) the combination of downwelling radiance spectra measured with the ground-based instruments with the upwelling top of the atmosphere spectral radiance measurements obtained with the Aqua Advanced Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and MetOp Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) satellite instruments. The objective is to obtain the highest possible vertical resolution atmospheric temperature and water vapor profiles from the surface to 50 km. The results are compared with those achieved by the ground-based measurements alone and with the satellite-alone measurements in order to identify the limitations of each type of profile input into atmospheric characterization models.