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Heaps, W. S.

Publications and source records attributed to Heaps, W. S..

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2012

A New Remote Sensing Filter Radiometer Employing a Fabry-Perot Etalon and a CCD Camera for Column Measurements of Methane in the Earth Atmosphere

A portable remote sensing system for precision column measurements of methane has been developed, built and tested at NASA GSFC. The sensor covers the spectral range from 1.636 micrometers to 1.646 micrometers, employs an air-gapped Fabry-Perot filter and a CCD camera and has a potential to operate from a variety of platforms. The detector is an XS-1.7-320 camera unit from Xenics Infrared solutions which combines an uncooled InGaAs detector array working up to 1.7 micrometers. Custom software was developed in addition to the graphical user basic interface X-Control provided by the company to help save and process the data. The technique and setup can be used to measure other trace gases in the atmosphere with minimal changes of the etalon and the prefilter. In this paper we describe the calibration of the system using several different approaches.

Georgieva, E. M.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Robust IR Remote Sensing Technique of the Total Column of Trace Gases Including Carbon Dioxide and Methane

Progress on the development of a differential radiometer based upon the Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) for methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (C02) detection in the atmosphere is presented. Methane measurements are becoming increasingly important as a component of NASA's programs to understand the global carbon cycle and quantifY the threat of global warming. Methane is the third most important greenhouse gas in the Earth's radiation budget (after water vapor and carbon dioxide) and the second most important anthropogenic contributor to global warming. The importance of global warming and air quality to society caused the National Research Council to recommend that NASA develop the following missions [1]: ASCENDS (Active Sensing of C02 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons), GEOCAPE (Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events), and GACM (Global Atmosphere Composition Mission). Though methane measurements are not specifically called out in these missions, ongoing environmental changes have raised the importance of understanding the methane budget. In the decadal survey is stated that "to close the carbon budget, we would also address methane, but the required technology is not obvious at this time. If appropriate and cost-effective methane technology becomes available, we strongly recommend adding a methane capability". In its 2007 report the International Panel on Climate Change identified methane as a key uncertainty in our understanding saying that the causes of recent changes in the growth rate of atmospheric CH4 are not well understood. What we do know is that methane arises from a number of natural sources including wet lands and the oceans plus man made sources from agriculture, as well as coal and petroleum production and distribution. It has recently been pointed out that large amount of methane are frozen in the permafrost of Canada and Siberia. There is a fear that melting of this permafrost driven by global warming may release large amounts of methane very suddenly further exacerbating climate change [2]. Last year our group began a joint effort with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory to investigate the possibility of developing a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped to measure greenhouse gases-particularly methane. Although we are targeting our system for smaller UAV's the instrument will be directly applicable to missions involving larger NASA UAV's such as Global Hawk or even on missions utilizing manned aircraft. Because of its small size, inherent ruggedness and simplicity some version of our proposed instrument may find a role as a satellite instrument for NASA or NOAA.

Georgieva, E. M.↗
NASA NTRS2010

A Broad Bank Lidar for Precise Atmospheric CO2 Column Absorption Measurement from Space

Accurate global measurement of carbon dioxide column with the aim of discovering and quantifying unknown sources and sinks has been a high priority for the last decade. In order to uncover the "missing sink" that is responsible for the large discrepancies in the budget the critical precision for a measurement from space needs to be on the order of 1 ppm. To better understand the CO2 budget and to evaluate its impact on global warming the National Research Council (NRC) in its recent decadal survey report (NACP) to NASA recommended a laser based total CO2 mapping mission in the near future. That's the goal of Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) mission - to significantly enhance the understanding of the role of CO2 in the global carbon cycle. Our current goal is to develop an ultra precise, inexpensive new lidar system for column measurements of CO2 changes in the lower atmosphere that uses a Fabry-Perot interferometer based system as the detector portion of the instrument and replaces the narrow band laser commonly used in lidars with a high power broadband source. This approach reduces the number of individual lasers used in the system and considerably reduces the risk of failure. It also tremendously reduces the requirement for wavelength stability in the source putting this responsibility instead on the Fabry- Perot subsystem.

Georgieva, E. M.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Differential Radiometers Using Fabry-Perot Interferometric Technique for Remote Sensing Determination of Various Atmospheric Trace Gases

New type of remote sensing instrument based upon the Fabry-Perot inte rferometric technique has been developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Fabry-Perot interferometry (FPI) is a well known, powerful spectroscopic technique and one of its many applications is to be use d to measure greenhouse gases and also some harmful species in the at mosphere. With this technique, absorption of particular species is me asured and related to its concentration. A solid Fabry-Perot etalon is used as a frequency filter to restrict the measurement to particular absorption bands of the gas of interest. With adjusting the thicknes s of the etalon that separation (in frequency) of the transmitted fri nges can be made equal to the almost constant separation of the gas a bsorption lines. By adjusting the temperature of the etalon, which changes the index of refi-action of its material, the transmission fring es can be brought into nearly exact correspondence with absorption li nes of the particular species. With this alignment between absorption lines and fringes, changes in the amount of a species in the atmosph ere strongly affect the amount of light transmitted by the etalon and can be related to gas concentration. The instrument that we have dev eloped detects the absorption of various atmospheric trace gases in d irect or reflected sunlight. Our instrument employing Fabry-Perot interferometer makes use of two features to achieve high sensitivity. The first is high spectral resolution enabling one to match the width of an atmospheric absorption feature by the instrumental band pass. The second is high optical throughput enabled by using multiple spectral lines simultaneously. For any species that one wishes to measure, thi s first feature is available while the use of multiple spectral features can be employed only for species with suitable spectra and freedom from interfering species in the same wavelength region. We have deve loped an instrument for use as ground based, airborne and satellite s ensor for gases such as carbon dioxide (1570 nm), oxygen (762 nm and 768 nm lines sensitive to changes in oxygen pressure and oxygen temper ature) and water vapor (940 nm). Our current goal is to develop an ul tra precise, inexpensive, ground based device suitable for wide deplo yment as a validation instrument for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) satellite. We show sensitivity measurements for CO2, 02, and H2 O, compare our measurements to those obtained using other types of sensors and discuss some of the peculiarities that must be addressed in order to provide the very high quality column detection required for solving problems about global distribution of greenhouse gases and cl imatological models. In another area of research we are interested in developing a small-size channel for CO2 capable of doing simultaneous measurements with the AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) at NASA, God dard to study the hypothesis that atmospheric aerosols affect the reg ional terrestrial carbon cycle. We present recent data from our groun d based measurements of O2, CO2, H2O and (13)CO2 and discuss extensio n of the technique to new species and applications.

Georgieva, E. M.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Fabry-Perot Interferometer for Column CO2: Airborne

Global atmospheric CO2 measurements are essential to resolving significant discrepancies in our understanding of the global carbon budget and, hence, humankind's role in global climate change. The science measurement requirements for CO2 are, however, extremely demanding (precision approximately 0.3%). We are developing a novel application of a Fabry-Perot interferometer to detect spectral absorption of reflected sunlight by CO2 and O2 in the atmosphere that should be able to achieve sufficient sensitivity and signal-to-noise to measure column CO2 at the target specification. We are currently constructing a prototype instrument for deployment on aircraft. The aircraft version will measure total column CO2 and CO2 below the aircraft as well as O2, which allows normalization of CO2 column amounts for varying surface height and pressure. This instrument will be a valuable asset in carbon budget field studies as well as a useful tool for evaluating existing and future space-based CO2 measurements. We will present the instrument concept, sensitivity calculations, and the results of testing a bench system in the laboratory and outdoors on the ground. We will also discuss our plan for deployment on the aircraft and potential flight applications to the CO2 budget problem.

Kawa, S. R.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Trends in stratospheric minor constituents

Photochemical models predict that increasing source gas concentrations are also expected to lead to changes in the concentrations of both catalytically active radical species (such as NO2, ClO, and OH) and inactive reservoir species (such as HNO3, HCl, and H2O). For simplicity, we will refer to all these as trace species. Those species that are expected to have increasing concentration levels are investigated. Additionally, the trace species concentration levels are monitored for unexpected changes on the basis of the measure increase in source gases. Carrying out these investigations is difficult due to the limited data base of measurements of stratospheric trace species. In situ measurements are made only infrequently, and there are few satelliteborne measurements, most over a time space insufficient for trend determination. Instead, ground-based measurements of column content must be used for many species, and interpretation is complicated by contributions from the troposphere or mesosphere or both. In this chapter, we examine existing measurements as published or tabulated.

Stolarski, R. S.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Improvements in the Goddard balloon-borne lidar

The Goddard balloon-borne lidar system for the measurement of stratospheric ozone and the hydroxyl radical has made three additional flights since the last laser radar conference. On September 27, 1984, a flight was made from Palestine, Texas obtaining a measurement of hydroxyl diurnal variation at 36 km. These data are presented on the plot which shows hydroxyl concentration as a function of GMT for the range cell closest to the instrument. Local noon corresponds to 18 hours on the plot. The rapid drop in concentration after noon is not predicted by models of stratospheric chemistry. It may represent the effects of contamination of the sample volume by hydrocarbons outgassed from the balloon. The more recent flights on June 30, 1985, and December 6, 1985, focussed on measurements of concentration in the lower stratosphere (less than 30 km). The June flight succeeded in obtaining an average concentration measurement (1.8 + or - 0.0000018 molecules/cubic cm) over the altitude range 21 to 26 km. The December flight obtained measurements down to 24 km with a better signal-to-noise ratio than that obtained in June. Prospects for further improvement in sensitivity and absolute calibration will be discussed.

Heaps, W. S.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Progress in stratospheric hydroxyl measurement by balloon-borne lidar

Knowledge of the concentration of hydroxyl radical is crucial to understanding the chemistry of the stratosphere. Hydroxyl participates in several catalytic cycles which destroy ozone and strongly influences the cycles of chlorine and nitrogen oxides by its reactions which form or destroy reservoirs for chlorine and odd-nitrogen compounds. Measurements have been conducted of the concentration of hydroxyl radical between the altitudes of 32.5 and 38.5 km using the technique of laser-induced fluorescence. The results ranging from 4 to 9 x 10 to the 6th per cu cm (with an accuracy of + or - 50 percent) are about 2-3 times lower than predicted by current one-dimensional models, although the uncertainties in the determination and in the models are sufficiently large to explain the differences. A number of potential improvements to the instrument are discussed.

Heaps, W. S.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence of selected even-parity 7p states of Xe I

Lifetimes and self-quenching rates have been measured for excited states of Xe I that were populated using simultaneous two-photon absorption. Lifetimes measured in this study are somewhat shorter than those measured using the broadband-excitation technique. Lifetimes reported here are all faster than 100 nsec. Deactivation rates are approximately 2 x 10 to the -10th cu cm/sec per mol.

Mcgee, T. J.↗
NASA NTRS1983

Balloon borne LIDAR measurements of stratospheric hydroxyl radical

A balloon-borne laser radar (LIDAR) system for determining the stratospheric hydroxyl radical concentration constructed and flown by the Goddard Space Flight Center is discussed. The system measured hydroxyl in the altitude range of 34-37 km during an afternoon and early evening, producing the first post-sunset hydroxyl determination ever obtained. Daytime values (approximately 5 x 10 to the 6th/cu cm) are somewhat lower than previous measurements using in situ resonance fluorescence. Nighttime values (approximately 7 x 10 to the 5th/cu cm at 2100 CDT) are found to be higher than predicted by current one-dimensional models. Possible sources of these discrepancies, together with improvements possible in future systems, are outlined.

Heaps, W. S.↗
NASA NTRS1983

The NASA/Goddard balloon borne lidar system

The present investigation represents a part of a NASA program which is concerned with a study regarding the seriousness of man-made stratospheric ozone depletion. Such a depletion could possibly be caused by exhaust gases of aircraft at high altitudes or the release of chlorofluorocarbons into the lower atmosphere. A balloon-borne optical radar system was employed to conduct ozone measurements in the altitude region from 21 to 36 km and hydroxyl radical measurements in the region from 33 to 36 km. The hydroxyl radical was determined by making use of a procedure which is based on fluorescence induced by laser radiation. The technique of differential absorption lidar (DIAL) was used to measure ozone. According to this technique, two wavelengths are transmitted simultaneously and their backscattered intensities are measured. the obtained results show that optical radar represents an effective tool for stratospheric investigations.

Heaps, W. S.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Stratospheric ozone and hydroxyl radical measurements by balloon-borne lidar

An experiment is reported in which a balloon-borne lidar system was used to measure ozone and the hydroxyl radical in the stratosphere by two lidar techniques. Ozone was measured in the 20-37 km altitude range using differential absorption lidar, and the hydroxyl radical was measured in the 34-37 km range using remote laser-induced fluorescence. Ozone concentrations were determined with a vertical resolution of 0.5 km, and in addition, horizontally resolved ozone measurements with 0.15-km resolution were obtained over a 2-km range. The temporal variation of the hydroxyl radical concentration ranged from 40 parts/trillion shortly after noon to about 5 parts/trillion two hours after sunset. Possible modifications to the system are discussed which can yield an improvement in the sensitivity of between one and two orders of magnitude, thus permitting measurements of the hydroxyl radical in the 20-30-km altitude range.

Heaps, W. S.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Selection of fluorescence lidar operating parameters for SNR maximization

Fluorescence lidar when applicable offers one of the most sensitive methods for measuring the concentration of trace constituents of the atmosphere. In the conduct of a fluorescence lidar experiment, a number of parameters which can be used to optimize the SNR can be controlled. In this paper the optimum division of laser pulses centered on and off the fluorescence excitation wavelength is calculated as a function of the ratio of the fluorescence signal strength to the strength of fluorescence from interfering species. For strong interference signals the time should be divided equally on and off the line. For strong fluorescence signals the time on line is proportional to the square root of the on-line off-line signal ratio. The optimization of the integration time for varying values of signal-to-background and signal-to-interference ratios, atmospheric attenuation, laser energy variations, background measurement time, and on-line off-line time division is also considered.

Heaps, W. S.↗
NASA NTRS1981

A theoretical assessment of the O3/H2O interference problem in the detection of natural levels of OH via laser induced fluorescence

Theoretical calculations are presented which estimate the possible magnitude of the O3/H2O derived OH interference signal resulting from the use of the laser-induced fluorescence technique in measuring natural levels of tropospheric OH. Critical to this new assessment has been the measurement of the nascent OH quantum state distribution resulting from the reaction O(1D) + H2O yields 2OH, and an assessment of the subsequent rotational relaxation of the OH species when formed in high k levels.

Davis, D. D.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Beam splitters for dye laser pumping

Problems associated with the development of beam splitters for partitioning pump beams for pulsed dye laser systems are discussed. The operating characteristics of two types of splitters are calculated: a wedge type beam splitter and a constant-deviation prism type beam splitter. The effects of beta-angle variation on the performance of the prism type beam splitter are considered.

Heaps, W. S.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Measurement of hydroxyl radical in the upper atmosphere using lidar from the Space Shuttle

The paper examines the measurements of hydroxyl radical in the upper atmosphere using lidar from the Space Shuttle. The measurement of the latitudinal and diurnal variation of OH would provide tests for stratospheric and mesospheric chemistry; two lidar systems aboard the Space Shuttle are described with the first providing the best signal to noise ratio for nighttime measurements at altitudes above 40 km, and the second giving a better performance during the day and at lower altitudes.

Heaps, W. S.↗