Validation of nitrogen dioxide measurements from the Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder

Abstract

Measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from the Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder (ISAMS) on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) are assessed. Channel 5 of the instrument was dedicated to observations of nitrogen dioxide and employed pressure‐modulation and wideband radiometry to make measurements at 6.2 μm. This dual technique allows simultaneous determination of nitrogen dioxide mixing ratio and the aerosol extinction coefficient at this wavelength and therefore provides nitrogen dioxide data even in the presence of heavy aerosol loading. Approximately 180 days of data, in the period from September 1991 to July 1992, were obtained with, typically, over 2600 profiles per day for each retrieved species, covering an altitude range of 100–0.01 mbar. In this paper the version 10 data are assessed and a full error analysis is described. Comparisons with the Cryogenic Limb Array Etalon Spectrometer (CLAES) on UARS and the Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere (LIMS) on Nimbus 7 are also presented. It is concluded that the morphology of the retrieved ISAMS fields is robust and consistent with concurrent as well as previous infrared satellite measurements. Random errors are estimated to be of the order of 10% for nighttime and 15% for daytime NO2 near the maxima of the distributions, and systematic errors are estimated to be of a similar size. However, there remains an unresolved systematic difference of about a factor of 2 between ISAMS and CLAES. Both random and systematic errors are likely to be reduced in future versions of the processing.