New method for simultaneous gas and aerosol retrievals from space limb-scanning spectral observation of the atmosphere

Appl Opt. 2002 Jul 20;41(21):4234-44. doi: 10.1364/ao.41.004234.

Abstract

This study concerns the development of a new inversion method for simultaneous gas and aerosol retrievals in the upper layers of the atmosphere from limb-viewing multiwavelength-transmission infrared measurements. In this method, concentrations of gas species such as O3, NO2, HNO3, N2O, CH4, and H2O, and spectral dependences of the aerosol extinction coefficient are retrieved simultaneously. When this is done, smoothness constraints on the desired spectral dependencies of the aerosol extinction coefficient are used as an a priori assumption. The method is used in the treating of synthetic transmission spectra of the Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer, which is based on the solar occultation technique and was on board the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite. A set of numerical tests shows the efficiency of the method.