Abstract
Abstract. The Ozone Mapper and Profiler Suite, Limp Profiler (OMPS/LP) algorithm is used to retrieve ozone concentration and aerosol extinction profiles using a series of 120 SCIAMACHY limb measurements collocated with SAGE II solar occultation events. The primary goal of the study is to ascertain the capability of the OMPS/LP retrieval algorithm to accurately retrieve the vertical distribution of stratospheric aerosol extinction coefficient so as to better account for aerosol effects in the ozone profiling retrieval process. Using simulated radiances, we show that the aerosol extinction coefficient can be retrieved from limb scatter measurements within 5% and a standard deviation better than 15%, which is more than sufficient to improve the OMPS/LP ozone products to be used as Environmental Data Records. We also illustrate the ability of SCIAMACHY limb measurements to retrieve stratospheric aerosol extinction profiles with accuracy comparable to other instruments. The retrieved aerosol extinction profiles agree with collocated SAGE II measurements on average to within 25%, with a standard deviation of 35%.
Highlights
The Ozone Mapper and Profiler Suite (OMPS) mission will be launched on board the National Polar Orbiting Environment Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite in October 2011
A spatial Gaussian convolution with a Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) of 2.7 km was applied to the forward model to match the SCIAMACHY Field of View (FOV) function
The OMPS/Limb Profiler (LP) retrieval algorithm is currently being tested with a large set of synthetic and proxy radiance data in order to gauge its performance and identify sources of bias and systematic errors
Summary
The Ozone Mapper and Profiler Suite (OMPS) mission will be launched on board the National Polar Orbiting Environment Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite in October 2011. The present paper is concerned with one of the OMPS suite of instruments, namely the Limb Profiler (LP), which will use the measurements of scattered solar radiation to infer information on the ozone concentration vertical profile. In order to test the OMPS retrieval algorithm, we use a simulated set of radiances and the limb scattering measurements of SCIAMACHY on board of Envisat. Another objective of this paper is to illustrate the capabilities of SCIAMACHY limb measurements to derive stratospheric aerosol extinction profiles, since this work presents the first results of such a retrieval
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