The feasibility of tropospheric and total ozone determination using a Fabry-Perot interferometer as a satellite-based nadir-viewing atmospheric sensor.
Larar, Allen Maurice
1993
Abstract
Monitoring of the global distribution of tropospheric ozone ($O\sb3$) is desirable for enhanced scientific understanding as well as to potentially lessen the ill-health impacts associated with exposure to elevated concentrations in the lower atmosphere. Such a capability can be achieved using a satellite-based device making high spectral resolution measurements with high signal-to-noise ratios; this would enable observation in the pressure-broadened wings of strong $O\sb3$ lines while minimizing the impact of undesirable signal contributions associated with, for example, the terrestrial surface, interfering species, and clouds. The Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) provides high spectral resolution and high throughput capabilities that are essential for this measurement task. Through proper selection of channel spectral regions, the FPI optimized for tropospheric $O\sb3$ measurements can simultaneously observe a stratospheric component and thus the total $O\sb3$ column abundance. Decreasing stratospheric $O\sb3$ concentrations may lead to an increase in biologically harmful solar ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth's surface, which is detrimental to health. In this research, a conceptual instrument design to achieve the desired measurement has been formulated. This involves a double-etalon fixed-gap series configuration FPI along with an ultra-narrow bandpass filter to achieve single-order operation with an overall spectral resolution of approximately.068 $cm\sp{-1}$. A spectral region of about 1 $cm\sp{-1}$ wide centered at 1054.73 $cm\sp{-1}$ within the strong 9.6 $\mu$m ozone infrared band is sampled with 24 spectral channels. Other design characteristics include operation from a nadir-viewing satellite configuration utilizing a 9 inch (diameter) telescope and achieving horizontal spatial resolution with a 50 km nadir footprint. A retrieval technique has been implemented and is demonstrated for a tropical atmosphere possessing enhanced tropospheric ozone amounts. An error analysis assessing the impact on retrieved $O\sb3$ amounts of the most significant uncertainties associated with this particular measurement has been performed for several different types of atmospheres. Results show the proposed instrumentation to enable a good measurement of absolute ozone amounts and an even better determination of relative changes, with a range of accuracy to within 7.55 to 20.6% for integrated tropospheric amounts (and 1.99 to 4.02% for total $O\sb3$ column abundance) and a corresponding range in precision to within 7.73 to 10.4% (and 3.30 to 3.95% for total $O\sb3$ column abundance), for the atmospheric conditions considered.Other Identifiers
(UMI)AAI9409741
Subjects
Physics, Atmospheric Science Remote Sensing
Types
Thesis
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