| 1. |
- Kiefer, M., et al.
(författare)
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Impact of temperature field inhomogeneities on the retrieval of atmospheric species from MIPAS IR limb emission spectra
- 2010
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Discussions. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1867-8610. ; 3:2, s. 1707-1742
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We examine volume mixing ratios (vmr) retrieved from limb emission spectra recorded with the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS). In level 2 (L2) data products of three different retrieval processors, which perform one dimensional (1-D) retrievals, we find significant differences between species' profiles from ascending and descending orbit parts. The relative differences vary systematically with time of the year, latitude, and altitude. In the lower stratosphere their monthly means can reach maxima of 20% for CFC-11, CFC-12, HNO3, H2O, 10% for CH4 and N2O. Relative differences between monthly means of 1-D retrieval results and of the true atmospheric state can be expected to reach half of these percentage values, while relative differences in single vmr profiles might well exceed those numbers. Often there are no physical or chemical reasons for these differences, so they are an indicator for a problem in the data processing. The differences are generally largest at locations where the meridional temperature gradient of the atmosphere is strong. On the contrary, when performing the retrieval with a tomographic two dimensional (2-D) retrieval, L2 products generally do not show these differences. This implies that inhomogeneities in the temperature field, and possibly in the species' fields, which are accounted for in the 2-D algorithm and not in standard 1-D processors, may cause significant deviations in the results. Inclusion of an externally given adequate temperature gradient in the forward model of a 1-D processor helps to reduce the observed differences. However, only the full tomographic approach is suitable to resolve the horizontal inhomogeneities. Implications for the use of the 1-D data, e.g. for validation, are discussed. The dependence of the ascending/descending differences on the observation strategy suggests that this problem is to be expected to affect in general 1-D retrievals of infrared limb sounders, if the line of sight of the instrument has a significant component in the direction of the horizontal temperature variation.
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| 2. |
- Wetzel, G., et al.
(författare)
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Validation of MIPAS-ENVISAT H2O operational data collected between July 2002 and March 2004
- 2013
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 13:11, s. 5791-5811
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Water vapour (H2O) is one of the operationally retrieved key species of the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) instrument aboard the Environmental Satellite (ENVISAT) which was launched into its sun-synchronous orbit on 1 March 2002 and operated until April 2012. Within the MIPAS validation activities, independent observations from balloons, aircraft, satellites, and ground-based stations have been compared to European Space Agency (ESA) version 4.61 operational H2O data comprising the time period from July 2002 until March 2004 where MIPAS measured with full spectral resolution. No significant bias in the MIPAS H2O data is seen in the lower stratosphere (above the hygropause) between about 15 and 30 km. Differences of H2O quantities observed by MIPAS and the validation instruments are mostly well within the combined total errors in this altitude region. In the upper stratosphere (above about 30 km), a tendency towards a small positive bias (up to about 10 %) is present in the MIPAS data when compared to its balloon-borne counterpart MIPAS-B, to the satellite instruments HALOE (Halogen Occultation Experiment) and ACE-FTS (Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment, Fourier Transform Spectrometer), and to the millimeter-wave airborne sensor AMSOS (Airborne Microwave Stratospheric Observing System). In the mesosphere the situation is unclear due to the occurrence of different biases when comparing HALOE and ACE-FTS data. Pronounced deviations between MIPAS and the correlative instruments occur in the lowermost stratosphere and upper troposphere, a region where retrievals of H2O are most challenging. Altogether it can be concluded that MIPAS H2O profiles yield valuable information on the vertical distribution of H2O in the stratosphere with an overall accuracy of about 10 to 30% and a precision of typically 5 to 15% - well within the predicted error budget, showing that these global and continuous data are very valuable for scientific studies. However, in the region around the tropopause retrieved MIPAS H2O profiles are less reliable, suffering from a number of obstacles such as retrieval boundary and cloud effects, sharp vertical discontinuities, and frequent horizontal gradients in both temperature and H2O volume mixing ratio (VMR). Some profiles are characterized by retrieval instabilities.
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| 3. |
- Buehler, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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A multi-instrument comparison of integrated water vapour measurements at a high latitude site
- 2012
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Ingår i: Atmospheric Chemistry And Physics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1680-7316 .- 1680-7324. ; 12:22, s. 10925-10943
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We compare measurements of integrated water vapour (IWV) over a subarctic site (Kiruna, Northern Sweden) from five different sensors and retrieval methods: Radiosondes, Global Positioning System (GPS), ground-based Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer, ground-based microwave radiometer, and satellite-based microwave radiometer (AMSU-B). Additionally, we compare also to ERA-Interim model reanalysis data. GPS-based IWV data have the highest temporal coverage and resolution and are chosen as reference data set. All datasets agree reasonably well, but the ground-based microwave instrument only if the data are cloud-filtered. We also address two issues that are general for such intercomparison studies, the impact of different lower altitude limits for the IWV integration, and the impact of representativeness error. We develop methods for correcting for the former, and estimating the random error contribution of the latter. A literature survey reveals that reported systematic differences between different techniques are study-dependent and show no overall consistent pattern. Further improving the absolute accuracy of IWV measurements and providing climate-quality time series therefore remain challenging problems.
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| 4. |
- Höpfner, M., et al.
(författare)
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The natural greenhouse effect of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2)
- 2012
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Ingår i: Geophysical Research Letters. - 0094-8276 .- 1944-8007. ; 39:10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The effect of collision-induced absorption by molecular oxygen (O 2) and nitrogen (N 2) on the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) of the Earth's atmosphere has been quantified. We have found that on global average under clear-sky conditions the OLR is reduced due to O 2 by 0.11 Wm -2 and due to N 2 by 0.17 Wm -2. Together this amounts to 15% of the OLR-reduction caused by CH 4 at present atmospheric concentrations. Over Antarctica the combined effect of O 2 and N 2 increases on average to about 38% of CH 4 with single values reaching up to 80%. This is explained by less interference of H 2O spectral bands on the absorption features of O 2 and N 2 for dry atmospheric conditions.
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| 5. |
- Kottayil, Ajil, et al.
(författare)
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On the importance of Vaisala RS92 radiosonde humidity corrections for a better agreement between measured and modeled satellite radiances
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. - 0739-0572 .- 1520-0426. ; 29:2, s. 248-259
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A study has been carried out to assess the importance of radiosonde corrections in improving the agreement between satellite and radiosonde measurements of upper-tropospheric humidity. Infrared [High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS)-12] and microwave [Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU)-18] measurements from the NOAA-17 satellite were used for this purpose. The agreement was assessed by comparing the satellite measurements against simulated measurements using collocated radiosonde profiles of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program undertaken at tropical and midlatitude sites. The Atmospheric Radiative Transfer Simulator (ARTS) was used to simulate the satellite radiances. The comparisons have been done under clear-sky conditions, separately for daytime and nighttime soundings. Only Vaisala RS92 radiosonde sensors were used and an empirical correction (EC) was applied to the radiosonde measurements. The EC includes correction for mean calibration bias and for solar radiation error, and it removes radiosonde bias relative to three instruments of known accuracy. For the nighttime dataset, the EC significantly reduces the bias from 0.63 to −0.10 K in AMSU-18 and from 1.26 to 0.35 K in HIRS-12. The EC has an even greater impact on the daytime dataset with a bias reduction from 2.38 to 0.28 K in AMSU-18 and from 2.51 to 0.59 K in HIRS-12. The present study promises a more accurate approach in future radiosonde-based studies in the upper troposphere.
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