Strategy Builder software for atmospheric retrievals

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of using a Strategy Builder object to automate selection of initial parameters needed to perform an atmospheric retrieval for the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) data processing system. Atmospheric retrievals consist of scientific algorithms used to ascertain the actual state of the atmosphere in terms of its temperature and chemical constituents. Atmospheric retrieval algorithms are computationally expensive and convergence of the retrieval is sensitive to input, therefore it is important to provide the best input that will result in the best atmospheric profile. TES has complex requirements in terms of the variety of input data and observations. So it requires a sophisticated system such as Strategy Builder to automate the selection of the optimum strategy for performing the retrieval algorithm on its various types of observation. Strategy Builder also increases the lifetime of the retrieval software by improving its flexibility in implementing various research approaches. Strategy Builder software uses strategy selection logic based on specific strategy selection rules for retrieval of various target scenes. This paper also addresses the issues involved in retrieving the atmosphere of one target scene in a sequence of retrievals. With the robustness that Strategy Builder provides the retrieval software can be used for a longer time, for more research and the produced output is more reliable. It also mitigates the needs for development of extra software for trying different ideas in research.