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Wedge immersed-thermistor bolometer measures infrared radiation in the atmosphere. The thermistor flakes are immersed by optical contact on a wedge-shaped germanium lens whose narrow dimension is clamped between two complementary wedge-shaped germanium blocks bonded with a suitable adhesive.
Tiros VII measurements of 15 micron radiation emitted by carbon dioxide from which global maps of stratospheric temperatures are obtained
Temperature and spectral emissivity characteristics of cloud tops and surface of earth
Theoretical modeling study of gamma ray scattering technique for measuring atmospheric density
Falling sphere, solar XUV radiation absorption and pressure gauge mass spectrometry for density measurements of thermosphere, comparing results and noting discrepancies
Atmospheric temperature profile to 30 km determined by balloon-borne grating spectrometer of radiance of earth between 2100 and 2700 reciprocal cm
Balloon position determination in Venusian atmosphere, using ranging measurement and radiated signal polarization
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Various mathematical models for infrared radiation absorption spectra for atmospheric gases are reviewed, and continuous correlations for the total absorptance of a wide band are presented. Different band absorptance correlations were employed in two physically realistic problems (radiative transfer in gases with internal heat source, and heat transfer in laminar flow of absorbing-emitting gases between parallel plates) to study their influence on final radiative transfer results. This information will be applied to the study of atmospheric pollutants by infrared radiation measurement.
The influence of vibrational nonequilibrium upon upwelling infrared radiance from the earth's atmosphere is investigated. By employing the line-by-line model for spectral absorption, heating rates and upwelling radiances are calculated for equilibrium and nonequilibrium conditions in the spectral range of 4.7 micron CO and 3.3 micron CH4 bands. Heating rates are calculated also for the 15 micron CO2 band and are compared with other available results in the literature. For the spectral range of the CO fundamental band, the influence of different parameters on the upwelling radiance is investigated. It is found that for CO the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) is not justified at tropospheric temperatures and pressures. If the resonance effects of CO-N2 collisions are considered, then the assumption of LTE is justified up to 60 kilometers. This information is very useful for measurement of atmospheric pollutants, earth radiation budget studies and climate modeling, and infrared signature works.
The Oregon State University/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory general circulation model has been employed as a vehicle for suggesting and exploring various means of converting narrow-band measurements of reflected solar radiation from the earth-atmosphere system to broad-band quantities. For purely illustrative purposes within the model's solar radiation routine, a narrow-band filter function consisting of a square-wave window extending from 0.5 to 0.9 microns is adopted. A limitation of the model, for this sort of endeavor, is that it does not include the wavelength dependence of surface albedos. Nevertheless, the model simulations tend to mimic the calibration of a narrow-band instrument, utilizing reflected solar radiation from the earth-atmosphere system as simultaneously measured by a collocated broad-band instrument; for the model, however, this is done in terms of fluxes, in contrast to instrument-measured radiances. The model results suggest that it might be preferable to perform narrow- to broad-band conversions in terms of planetary albedo (or an equivalent quantity), rather than in terms of reflected fluxes or radiances. Further improvement is achieved if, for instruments that can differentiate between clear and overcast conditions, separate clear and overcast calibrations are performed.
A benchtop virtual instrument simulator for CERES (Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System) has been built at NASA, Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA. The CERES instruments will fly on several earth orbiting platforms notably NASDA's Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) and NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites. CERES measures top of the atmosphere radiative fluxes using microprocessor controlled scanning radiometers. The CERES Virtual Instrument Simulator consists of electronic circuitry identical to the flight unit's twin microprocessors and telemetry interface to the supporting spacecraft electronics and two personal computers (PC) connected to the I/O ports that control azimuth and elevation gimbals. Software consists of the unmodified TRW developed Flight Code and Ground Support Software which serves as the instrument monitor and NASA/TRW developed engineering models of the scanners. The CERES Instrument Simulator will serve as a testbed for testing of custom instrument commands intended to solve in-flight anomalies of the instruments which could arise during the CERES mission. One of the supporting computers supports the telemetry display which monitors the simulator microprocessors during the development and testing of custom instrument commands. The CERES engineering development software models have been modified to provide a virtual instrument running on a second supporting computer linked in real time to the instrument flight microprocessor control ports. The CERES Instrument Simulator will be used to verify memory uploads by the CERES Flight Operations TEAM at NASA. Plots of the virtual scanner models match the actual instrument scan plots. A high speed logic analyzer has been used to track the performance of the flight microprocessor. The concept of using an identical but non-flight qualified microprocessor and electronics ensemble linked to a virtual instrument with identical system software affords a relatively inexpensive simulation system capable of high fidelity.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) P-3B Orion is a medium-lift, four engine turbo-prop aircraft that has been reconfigured from a military aircraft to an Earth Science research platform. The aircraft has a long history of supporting science missions, flying on average over 200 hours per year. Examples of research missions that have been flown aboard the aircraft are remote sensing flights to study geophysical parameters including ice-sheet topography and periodic change, soil moisture content, atmospheric aerosol constituents, and beach erosion. Missions are conducted for the purposes of calibration/validation of various NASA and international satellites that monitor climate change as well as process studies and the test of new prototype remote sensing instruments. In recent y ears the focus has been on ice surveys of the Arctic and Antarctic, soil moisture research, and measurements of atmospheric chemistry and radiation sciences. The aircraft has been conducting ice surveys of Greenland since 1993 for the purposes of topographic mapping of both the surface and basal topography. Another application of the aircraft has been for soil moisture research. Research has also been conducted using microwave radiometers and radars over various agricultural and forest lands. Recently, a mission was flown in the spring over the High-Arctic to collect air samples of haze and boreal forest fires in an effort to determine anthropogenic amounts and sources of pollution. This pa per will provide an overview of the P-3B platform and highlight recent science missions.
Surface reflectances and their dependency on illumination-view geometries (i.e., BRDF) are the foundation of many high-level satellite products for land and water monitoring. Yet it is difficult to evaluate the quality of satellite-based surface reflectances with ground-based measurements due to the spatial scale differences. In order to fill the gap, here we develop a reference dataset of surface reflectance and BRDF at the global AERONET sites with data streams from operational geostationary sensors including Himawari 8/9 AHI, GK-2A AMI, and GOES 16/17 ABI. Taking the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance and the site measured atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) as the main inputs, we apply the GeoNEX-AC algorithm to performance accurate atmospheric correction and derive 10-minute surface reflectance and daily Ross-Thick-Li-Sparse (RTLS) BRDF parameters at AERONET sites where coincident AOD measurements and TOA observations are available from 2016 (for Himawari) or 2018 (for GOES) onwards. The algorithm ensures that the retrieved surface BRDF parameters, along with the site-measured AOD, allow the atmospheric radiative transfer model, SHARM, accurately simulate the observed TOA reflectance at diurnal and longer time scales. They are our best estimates of the surface optical properties and thus can serve as the “reference” to evaluate the performance of operational atmospheric correction algorithms (where AOD is assumed unknown and needs to be retrieved). The reference BRDF also allow us to evaluate the spectral band ratios between the SWIR (e.g., 2200 nm) and the visible (e.g., 650 nm) regions, which are commonly used in operational atmospheric correction algorithms. Finally, we demonstrate that the reference dataset can be used to develop potential data synergies between different GEO satellites as well as GEO-LEO sensors.
The aerosol retrieval algorithms used by the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Multi-Angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) sensors on the Earth Observing Satellite (EOS) AM-1 platform operate by comparing measured radiances with tabulated radiances that have been computed for specific aerosol models. These aerosol models are based almost entirely on surface and/or column averaged measurements and so may not accurately represent the ambient aerosol properties. Therefore, to validate these EOS algorithms and to determine the effects of aerosols on the clear-sky radiative flux, we have begun to evaluate the vertical variability of ambient aerosol properties using the aerosol backscattering and extinction profiles measured by the Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Raman Lidars. Using the procedures developed for the GSFC Scanning Raman Lidar (SRL), we have developed and have begun to implement algorithms for the CART Raman Lidar to routinely provide profiles of aerosol extinction and backscattering during both nighttime and ,daytime operations. Aerosol backscattering and extinction profiles are computed for both lidar systems using data acquired during the 1996 and 1997 Water Vapor Intensive Operating Periods (IOPs). By integrating these aerosol extinction profiles, we derive measurements of aerosol optical thickness and compare these with coincident sun photometer measurements. We also use these measurements to measure the aerosol extinction/backscatter ratio S(sub a) (i.e. 'lidar ratio'). Furthermore, we use the simultaneous water vapor measurements acquired by these Raman lidars to investigate the effects of water vapor on aerosol optical properties.
There have been major efforts in measuring extraterrestrial solar irradiance for use in atmospheric studies. The quantity of immediate relevance to theoretical studies is the number of photons which reach a given altitude in the middle atmosphere. Current models compute the attenuated radiation field but the cross sections available for the major absorbers, O2 and O3, often come from experiments that are now quite old. Balloon measurements show some significant differences between the predicted and observed ultraviolet radiation field between 30 and 40 km. The wavelength region to be studied includes Lyman alpha plus the range 175 nm to the visible. Specific topics to be addressed are as follows: (1) the cross sections of the major absorbers, O2 and O3 including the Schumann-Runge bands as a subset; (2) comparison of the in situ measurements of the attenuated radiation field with calculations; and (3) the relevance of the scattered and reflected radiation fields for middle atmospheric processes.
Direct-Normal Solar Irradiance (DNSI), the total energy in the solar spectrum incident on a plane perpendicular to the Sun's direction on a unit area at the earth's surface in unit time, depends only on the atmospheric extinction of sunlight without regard to the details of extinction-whether absorption or scattering. Here the authors describe a set of closure experiments performed in north-central Oklahoma, wherein measured atmospheric composition is input to a radiative transfer model, MODTRAN-3, to predict DNSI, which is then compared to measured values. Thirty six independent comparisons are presented; the agreement between predicted and measured values falls within the combined uncertainties in the prediction (2%) and measurement (0.2%) albeit with a slight bias ((approximately) 1% overprediction) that is independent of the solar zenith angle. Thus these results establish the adequacy of current knowledge of the solar spectrum and atmospheric extinction as embodied in MODTRAN-3 for use in climate models. An important consequence is the overwhelming likelihood that the atmospheric clear-sky absorption is accurately described to within comparable uncertainties.
Detailed spectrally and spatially resolved radiance has been measured in the Electric Arc Shock Tube for conditions relevant to Titan entry, varying atmospheric composition, free-stream density (equivalent to altitude) and shock velocity. Permutations in atmospheric composition include 1.1, 2, 5 and 8.6 CH4 by mole with a balance of N2 and 1.5 CH4 0.5 Ar 98 N2 by mole, which is consistent with the current understanding of Titan's atmosphere. The effect of gas impurities identified in previous shock tube studies were also examined by testing in pure N2 and deliberate addition of air to the CH4N2 mixtures. The test campaign measured radiation at velocities from 4.7 kms to 8 kms and free-stream pressures from 0.1 to 0.47 Torr. These conditions cover a range of potential trajectories for flight missions, including a direct ballistic trajectory, a fly by or an extremely high speed entry. Radiances measured in this work are substantially larger compared to that reported both in past EAST test campaigns and other shock tube facilities. Depending on the metric used for comparison, the discrepancy can be as high as an order of magnitude. Potential causes for the discrepancy, such as the effect of oxygen due to Air leakage, gas composition and purity are discussed. The present work provides a new benchmark set of data to replace those published in previous studies.