Synergy between middle infrared and millimeter-wave limb sounding of atmospheric temperature and minor constituents

• Published in: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
• Main Authors: U. Cortesi, S. Del Bianco, S. Ceccherini, M. Gai, B. M. Dinelli, E. Castelli, H. Oelhaf, W. Woiwode, M. Höpfner, D. Gerber
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2016
• Subjects: Environmental engineering; TA170-171; Earthwork. Foundations; TA715-787; Arctic; Kiruna
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-2267-2016; https://doaj.org/article/1472b5383825474d91d71235c02c8d3d

Synergistic exploitation of redundant and complementary information from independent observations of the same target remains a major issue in atmospheric remote sounding and increasing attention is devoted to investigate optimized or innovative methods for the combination of two or more measured data sets. This paper focuses on the synergy between middle infrared and millimeter-wave limb sounding measurements of atmospheric composition and temperature and reports the results of a study conducted as part of the preparatory activities of the PREMIER (Process Exploration through Measurements of Infrared and millimeter-wave Emitted Radiation) mission candidate to the Core Missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) Earth Explorer 7. The activity was based on data acquired by the MIPAS-STR (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding – STRatospheric aircraft) and MARSCHALS (Millimetre-wave Airborne Receivers for Spectroscopic CHaracterisation in Atmospheric Limb Sounding) instruments on-board the high-altitude research aircraft M-55 Geophysica during the flight of the PremierEx (PREMIER Experiment) campaign on 10 March 2010 from Kiruna, Sweden, for observation of the Arctic upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The cloud coverage observed along the flight provided representative test cases to evaluate the synergy in three different scenarios: low clouds in the first part, no clouds in the central part and high tropospheric clouds at the end. The calculation of synergistic profiles of four atmospheric targets (i.e., O 3 , HNO 3 , H 2 O and temperature) was performed using a posteriori combination of individual retrieved profiles, i.e., Level 2 (L2) data rather than simultaneous inversion of observed radiances, i.e., Level 1 (L1) data. An innovative method of data fusion, based on the Measurement Space Solution (MSS) was applied along with the standard approach of inversion of MARSCHALS spectral radiances using MIPAS-STR retrieval products as a priori information (L1 + L2 method). A quantitative ...