Atmospheric constituent density profiles from full disk solar occultation experiments

Abstract

Mathematical methods are described which permit the derivation of the number of density profiles of atmospheric constituents from solar occultation measurements. The algorithm is first applied to measurements corresponding to an arbitrary solar-intensity distribution to calculate the normalized absorption profile. The application of Fourier transform to the integral equation yields a precise expression for the corresponding number density, and the solution is employed with the data given in the form of Laguerre polynomials. The algorithm is employed to calculate the results for the case of uniform distribution of solar intensity, and the results demonstrate the convergence properties of the method. The algorithm can be used to effectively model representative model-density profiles with constant and altitude-dependent scale heights.