Coordinated activity for the geophysical validation of MIPAS-ENVISAT v4.61/ v4.62 Ozone data

Ugo Cortesi (1) , Cornelis Blom (2) , Thomas Blumenstock (2) , S. Mikuteit (2) , Astrid Bracher (3) , M. Weber (3) , Ian Boyd (4) , Marco Iarlori , K. Jucks , Kelly Chance , Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath (5) , Jean-Christopher Lambert (6) , Coralie De Clercq (6) , Yasjka Meijer , Francesco Mencaraglia , Hermann Oelhaf , Sébastien Payan (7) , Claude Camy-Peyret (7) , Chiara Piccolo , Michel Pirre (8) , Ivan Kostadinov , Alison Waterfall , Gianluca Redaelli , Tilman Steck , Kimberly Strong (9) , Harjinder Sembhi , Konstantinos Varotsos , Fabrizio Ravegnani , Gottfried Schwarz , Corinne Vigouroux (6)

1 IFAC - Istituto di Fisica Applicata "Nello Carrara"
2 IMK - Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research
3 IUP - Institute of Environmental Physics [Bremen]
4 NIWA - National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research [Lauder]
5 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
6 BIRA-IASB - Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy / Institut d'Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique
7 LPMAA - Laboratoire de Physique Moleculaire pour l'Atmosphere et l'Astrophysique
8 LPCE - Laboratoire de physique et chimie de l'environnement
9 University of Toronto

Launched on March 1st, 2002 on-board the polar orbiting ENVISAT satellite, the MIPAS (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding) mid-infrared FT spectrometer performed limb emission measurements at high spectral resolution (0.025 cm-1) for about two years. Due to too frequent anomalies observed in the Interferometer Drive Unit, operations were suspended in March 2004 and finally resumed, in January 2005, in a new reduced resolution (0.01 cm-1) mode. Operational level 2 products for the complete set of target species (i.e. geo-located vertical profiles of Temperature and volume mixing ratio of H2O, O3, HNO3, CH4, N2O and NO2) were obtained during MIPAS full resolution mission, from July 6th, 2002 to March 26th, 2004. In this timeframe, several research groups involved in the ESA programme for geophysical validation of the ENVISAT Atmospheric Chemistry Instruments and in related national activities, carried out a variety of ground-based observations (ozone soundings, FT-IR, microwave radiometers, lidars) of the ozone vertical distribution and of in situ and remote sensing measurements from high altitude platforms, in close spatial and temporal coincidence with MIPAS overpasses. As a result, a comprehensive database of correlative measurements became available for a first inter-comparison of MIPAS O3 profiles with various datasets from coincident observations. A co-ordinated effort was finally conducted to bring together the individual outcomes of the different validation activities and to better exploit their redundant and complementary information. In the latter phase, special attention was paid to rigorous selection and use of correlative data, by adopting stringent coincidence criteria and by giving top priority to homogeneous and reliable validation data sources. Here we report a brief overview of the validation of MIPAS O3 data versions 4.61 and 4.62 (fully equivalent for validation purposes) by ground-based, balloon/aircraft and satellite measurements and discuss in details the resulting quality assessment of MIPAS O3 retrieved profiles.

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

Ugo Cortesi, Cornelis Blom, Thomas Blumenstock, S. Mikuteit, Astrid Bracher, et al.. Coordinated activity for the geophysical validation of MIPAS-ENVISAT v4.61/ v4.62 Ozone data. Atmospheric Science Conference – ESA ESRIN Frascati, Italie, 8-12 Mai 2006, 2006, Frascati, Italy. ⟨hal-00110662⟩