Retrieval and characterization of carbon monoxide (CO) vertical profiles in the Martian atmosphere from observations of PFS/MEX

Abstract

The knowledge of the carbon monoxide (CO) abundance on Mars is essential in order to assess the processes driving the carbon cycle on the planet. Solar occultation measurements provide vertically-resolved measurements of CO from a few kilometers to higher altitudes and can be complemented by nadir measurements to enhance the spatial coverage of observations and the monitoring of the near-surface layer. Up to now, in the shortwave, CO retrievals from nadir observations have, however, mostly been performed on mean spectra and only total column abundances have been obtained. In this work we explore the possibility of exploiting nadir measurements from the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) in the 1–0 band of CO (centered at 2143 cm−1) to retrieve vertical profiles of that species on individual measurement. The retrievals are performed for a set of 16 selected PFS spectra with reasonable signal-to-noise ratios by applying the Optimal Estimation Method (OEM) with appropriate constraints, built from model simulations of the Martian atmosphere. The retrieved profiles are characterized in terms of vertical sensitivity and errors. We demonstrate, in particular, that the PFS nadir measurements carry information mostly on the CO column below 15 km, with a maximum sensitivity to the near-surface atmosphere. These measurements allow to substantially reduce the prior uncertainty on the CO abundance in this altitude range, with an estimated total retrieval error on the column-averaged volume mixing ratio (VMR) around 10%. We show that the set of retrieved VMRs are in the range of values reported from other instruments. The retrieved VMRs also capture well the known spatial and seasonal CO variability, which is promising in the perspective of better exploiting the exceptional set of PFS observations on Mars.