DEVELOPMENT OF REMOTE SENSING ALGORITHM FOR ATMOSPHERIC PATH VARIABLES FROM RADIOMETRIC DATA

WE PROPOSE AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH FOR THE RETRIEVAL OF ARBITRARY ATMOSPHERIC PATH VARIABLES FROM RADIOMETRIC DATA. SPECIFICALLY, WE WILL EXTEND OUR CURRENT APPROACH TO THE CHARACTERIZATION OF THERMODYNAMIC PATH VARIABLES INCLUDING TEMPERATURE, DENSITY AND THE CONCENTRATIONS OF RELEVANT ABSORBING GASES BASED ON EXPLOITATION OF THE INFORMATION CONTENT OF HIGH RESOLUTION SPECTRAL SIGNATURES (ISAACS, 1988) TO ASPECTS OF THE NON-LOCAL THERMODYNAMIC EQUILIBRIUM (NLTE) PROBLEM, AND WILL OBTAIN INFORMATION ON PATH VARIABLES SUCH AS THOSE RELATED TO PARTICULATE SCATTERING, CLOUD PROPERTIES, AND SURFACE SIGNATURES FOR WHICH SPECTRAL PROPERTIES VARY SLOWLY WITH FREQUENCY. THE METHODOLOGY IS MATHEMATICALLY PLEASING AND COMPUTATIONALLY EFFICIENT SINCE ALL PATH VARIABLES ARE TREATED WITHIN THE "SIMULTANEOUS INVERSTION" FRAMEWORK. THE PROPOSED ALGORITHM IS UNIQUE IN THE RETRIEVAL COMMUNITY IN THAT THE INTERFACE ROUTINES FOR IMPLEMENTATION WITH FASCOD3 HAVE ALREADY BEEN DEVELOPED AT AER.