EOS Validation Program

Institution: University of Maryland Baltimore County
                    Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology
                    Physics Department
                    1000 Hilltop Circle
                    Baltimore, Maryland 21250-0001
Phone: (410) 455-6315
FAX: (410) 455-1072
E-mail: mcmillan@umbc.edu

Larrabee Strow, UMBC
William Smith, U. Wisconsin-Madison/NASA Langley
Gary Morris, UMBC
Anne Thompson, NASA GSFC
Jinxue Wang, NCAR

December 2001

We propose to participate in the validation of Measurement Of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) Level-2 carbon monoxide (CO) products by retrieving CO total columns and profiles from ground-based, airborne, and spaceborne interferometer spectra. MOPITT CO columns and profiles will require extensive validation, particularly in the lower troposphere and boundary layer where the MOPITT thermal CO channels lack sensitivity and the reflected solar channel is severely impacted by noise and spectroscopic uncertainties. We propose to retrieve three times daily CO total columns and three layer profiles from co-located, ground-based, thermal and solar spectra from the Department of Energy's (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site in central Oklahoma, a planned MOPITT validation site, and 10 minute integrated boundary layer CO from this and other thermal interferometers at ARM sites in the central United States, Alaskan north slope, and tropical western Pacific. Integrated boundary layer CO measurements offer a distinct advantage over {\em in situ} measurements by averaging over temporal and spatial variabilities while maintaining high temporal resolution. We will use our CO measurements to assess the quality of Level 2 CO products from the Japanese Interferometric Monitor of Greenhouse Gases (IMG) instrument currently in orbit. We will retrieve CO columns and profiles from all flights of opportunity of the University of Wisconsin's High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (HIS) and the NPOESS Aircraft Sounder Testbed-Interferometer (NAST-I). We anticipate HIS or NAST-I will fly in support of MODIS validation in EOS validation campaigns, some conducted at ARM sites. We have previously validated our column CO retrieval algorithm using HIS spectra and coordinated in situ measurements [1-3]. Finally, we will employ trajectory mapping techniques to improve the co-location and coincidence of our CO measurements with MOPITT observations.

1. W. W. McMillan, L. L. Strow, B. G. Doddridge, W. L. Smith, H. E. Revercomb, and H. L. Huang, Retrieval of carbon monoxide column densities using AIRS on EOS: Validation of a prototype retrieval algorithm, Proc. SPIE Int. Soc. Opt. Eng., 2830:169-179, 1996.

2. W. W. McMillan, L. L. Strow, W. L. Smith, H. E. Revercomb, and H. L. Huang, The detection of enhanced carbon monoxide abundances in remotely sensed infrared spectra of a forest fire smoke plume, GRL, 23(22):3199-3202, 1996.

3. W. W. McMillan, L. L. Strow, W. L. Smith, H. E. Revercomb, H. L. Huang, A. M. Thompson, D. P. McNamara, and W. F. Ryan, Remote sensing of carbon monoxide over the continental United States on September 12-13, 1993, JGR, 102:10,695-10,709, 1997.