Validation of MIPAS-ENVISAT NO 2 operational data

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: Wetzel, G., Bracher, A., Funke, B., Goutail, Florence, Hendrick, F., Lambert, J.-C., Mikuteit, S., Piccolo, C., Pirre, Michel, Bazureau, Ariane, Belotti, C., Blumenstock, T., de Mazière, M., Fischer, H., Huret, Nathalie, Ionov, D., López-Puertas, M., Maucher, G., Oelhaf, H., Pommereau, Jean-Pierre, Ruhnke, R., Sinnhuber, M., Stiller, G., van Roozendael, M., Zhang, G.
• Other Authors: Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Environmental Physics and Remote Sensing Bremen (IUP/IFE), University of Bremen, Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas España = Spanish National Research Council Spain (CSIC), Service d'aéronomie (SA), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy / Institut d'Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique (BIRA-IASB), University of Oxford, Laboratoire de physique et chimie de l'environnement (LPCE), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Istituto di Fisica Applicata "Nello Carrara" (IFAC), National Research Council of Italy
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2007
• Subjects: [SDU.OCEAN]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Ocean; Atmosphere; Antarc*; Antarctic; Arctic; polar night
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00328507; https://hal.science/hal-00328507/document; https://hal.science/hal-00328507/file/acp-7-3261-2007.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-7-3261-2007

International audience The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) instrument was launched aboard the environmental satellite ENVISAT into its sun-synchronous orbit on 1 March 2002. The short-lived species NO 2 is one of the key target products of MIPAS that are operationally retrieved from limb emission spectra measured in the stratosphere and mesosphere. Within the MIPAS validation activities, a large number of independent observations from balloons, satellites and ground-based stations have been compared to European Space Agency (ESA) version 4.61 operational NO 2 data comprising the time period from July 2002 until March 2004 where MIPAS measured with full spectral resolution. Comparisons between MIPAS and balloon-borne observations carried out in 2002 and 2003 in the Arctic, at mid-latitudes, and in the tropics show a very good agreement below 40 km altitude with a mean deviation of roughly 3%, virtually without any significant bias. The comparison to ACE satellite observations exhibits only a small negative bias of MIPAS which appears not to be significant. The independent satellite instruments HALOE, SAGE II, and POAM III confirm in common for the spring-summer time period a negative bias of MIPAS in the Arctic and a positive bias in the Antarctic middle and upper stratosphere exceeding frequently the combined systematic error limits. In contrast to the ESA operational processor, the IMK/IAA retrieval code allows accurate inference of NO 2 volume mixing ratios under consideration of all important non-LTE processes. Large differences between both retrieval results appear especially at higher altitudes, above about 50 to 55 km. These differences might be explained at least partly by non-LTE under polar winter conditions but not at mid-latitudes. Below this altitude region mean differences between both processors remain within 5% (during night) and up to 10% (during day) under undisturbed (September 2002) conditions and up to 40% under perturbed polar night conditions (February ...