Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “discrete ordinates”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 199 records · Page 11
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1992

Spatial resolution and cloud optical thickness retrievals

The impact of sensor spatial resolution and accurate cloud pixel identification on cloud property retrievals was investigated. Twelve fair weather cumulus (FWC) scenes of high spectral and spatial resolution Airborne Visible and Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) data are analyzed. A variation of the 3-band ratio technique of Gao and Goetz is used to discriminate clouds from the background, and then a discrete ordinate radiative transfer model is used to obtain optical thickness of cloudy regions for each scene. To study the effect of spatial resolution upon retrieved optical thickness, the 20 m AVIRIS data was spatially degraded to spatial resolutions ranging from 40 to 960 m. Cloud area, scene average optical thickness, and distribution of retrieved optical thickness are determined at each spatial resolution. Finally, a comparison between the 3-band ratio technique and monospectral reflectance thresholding, using 20 m spatial resolution data, is presented.

Feind, Rand E.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Computational analysis of Variable Thrust Engine (VTE) performance

The Variable Thrust Engine (VTE) of the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) uses a hypergolic propellant combination of Monomethyl Hydrazine (MMH) and Nitrogen Tetroxide (NTO) as fuel and oxidizer, respectively. The performance of the VTE depends on a number of complex interacting phenomena such as atomization, spray dynamics, vaporization, turbulent mixing, convective/radiative heat transfer, and hypergolic combustion. This study involved the development of a comprehensive numerical methodology to facilitate detailed analysis of the VTE. An existing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code was extensively modified to include the following models: a two-liquid, two-phase Eulerian-Lagrangian spray model; a chemical equilibrium model; and a discrete ordinate radiation heat transfer model. The modified code was used to conduct a series of simulations to assess the effects of various physical phenomena and boundary conditions on the VTE performance. The details of the models and the results of the simulations are presented.

Giridharan, M. G.↗
NASA NTRS1994

A rapid radiative transfer model for reflection of solar radiation

A rapid analytical radiative transfer model for reflection of solar radiation in plane-parallel atmospheres is developed based on the Sobolev approach and the delta function transformation technique. A distinct advantage of this model over alternative two-stream solutions is that in addition to yielding the irradiance components, which turn out to be mathematically equivalent to the delta-Eddington approximation, the radiance field can also be expanded in a mathematically consistent fashion. Tests with the model against a more precise multistream discrete ordinate model over a wide range of input parameters demonstrate that the new approximate method typically produces average radiance differences of less than 5%, with worst average differences of approximately 10%-15%. By the same token, the computational speed of the new model is some tens to thousands times faster than that of the more precise model when its stream resolution is set to generate precise calculations.

Xiang, X.↗
NASA NTRS1993

CFD Analysis of Spray Combustion and Radiation in OMV Thrust Chamber

The Variable Thrust Engine (VTE), developed by TRW, for the Orbit Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) uses a hypergolic propellant combination of Monomethyl Hydrazine (MMH) and Nitrogen Tetroxide (NTO) as fuel and oxidizer, respectively. The propellants are pressure fed into the combustion chamber through a single pintle injection element. The performance of this engine is dependent on the pintle geometry and a number of complex physical phenomena and their mutual interactions. The most important among these are (1) atomization of the liquid jets into fine droplets; (2) the motion of these droplets in the gas field; (3) vaporization of the droplets (4) turbulent mixing of the fuel and oxidizer; and (5) hypergolic reaction between MMH and NTO. Each of the above phenomena by itself poses a considerable challenge to the technical community. In a reactive flow field of the kind occurring inside the VTE, the mutual interactions between these physical processes tend to further complicate the analysis. The objective of this work is to develop a comprehensive mathematical modeling methodology to analyze the flow field within the VTE. Using this model, the effect of flow parameters on various physical processes such as atomization, spray dynamics, combustion, and radiation is studied. This information can then be used to optimize design parameters and thus improve the performance of the engine. The REFLEQS CFD Code is used for solving the fluid dynamic equations. The spray dynamics is modeled using the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. The discrete ordinate method with 12 ordinate directions is used to predict the radiative heat transfer in the OMV combustion chamber, nozzle, and the heat shield. The hypergolic reaction between MMH and NTO is predicted using an equilibrium chemistry model with 13 species. The results indicate that mixing and combustion is very sensitive to the droplet size. Smaller droplets evaporate faster than bigger droplets, leading to a well mixed zone in the combustion chamber. The radiative heat flux at combustion chamber and nozzle walls are an order of negligible less than the conductive heat flux. Simulations performed with the heat shield show that a negligible amount of fluid is entrained into the heat shield region. However, the heat shield is shown to be effective in protecting the OMV structure surrounding the engine from the radiated heat.

Giridharan, M. G.↗
NASA NTRS1995

MODTRAN3: An update and recent validations against airborne high resolution interferometer measurements

MODTRAN, the Moderate Resolution Atmospheric Radiance and Transmittance Model, encompasses all the capabilities of LOWTRAN 7, the widely used 20 cm(exp -1) resolution radiance code, but incorporates a much more sensitive molecular band model with 2 cm(exp -1) resolution. MODTRAN contains many important elements that other band model based radiative transfer codes do not incorporate. It shares with FASCODE: spherical geometry, single and multiple scattering default atmospheric profile descriptors (gases, aerosols, clouds, fogs, and rain), and molecular continua (H2O, CO2, O3, O2, N2). In addition, it can calculate the solar/lunar direct and scattered radiation. MODTRAN3 was released to the general public in November 1994. It has several important features that the previous version, MODTRAN2, does not have. Chloro-fluorocarbon (CFC) and related heavy molecules (whose spectroscopic properties first appear on the HITRAN92 data base as temperature-dependent cross sections) have been incorporated into pseudo-band models, with provision for using both default and user supplied profiles. The addition of SO2 and O2 in the UV, along with upgraded ozone Chappuis bands in the visible is also part of MODTRAN3. An improved multiple scattering algorithm, the DIScrete Ordinate Radiative Transfer (DISORT) has also been incorporated into MODTRAN3. MODTRAN is very fast: simple timing runs of MODTRAN3 vs. FASCOD3 show an improvement of more than a factor of 100 for a typical 500 cm(exp -1) spectral interval and comparable vertical layering. Speed is an important consideration in heating/cooling rates calculations, where a large number of radiative transfer calculations are needed. The MODTRAN3 used in this study is based on HITRAN92, but as mentioned, above, it will be upgraded to HITRAN94 upon its release at the end of 1994. MODTRAN has been adopted by: some researchers in the AVIRIS program as one radiative transfer code to derive surface reflectance from AVIRIS measurements. The accuracy of the code is very important because any errors in the radiative transfer calculation will directly translate into errors in the derived surface reflectance. In this paper, the new solar irradiance calculated by Kurucz, which is adopted in MODTRAN3, will be presented. Recent validations of MODTRAN3 with airborne high resolution interferometer measurements over ocean will be discussed. Good agreeement between model calculations and measurements was achieved.

Anderson, Gail P.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Global shortwave energy budget at the earth's surface from ERBE observations

A method is proposed to compute the net solar (shortwave) irradiance at the earth's surface from Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) data in the S4 format. The S4 data are monthly averaged broadband planetary albedo collected at selected times during the day. Net surface shortwave irradiance is obtained from the shortwave irradiance incident at the top of the atmosphere (known) by subtracting both the shortwave energy flux reflected by the earth-atmosphere system (measured) and the energy flux absorbed by the atmosphere (modeled). Precalculated atmospheric- and surface-dependent functions that characterize scattering and absorption in the atmosphere are used, which makes the method easily applicable and computationally efficient. Four surface types are distinguished, namely, ocean, vegetation, desert, and snow/ice. Over the tropical Pacific Ocean, the estimates based on ERBE data compare well with those obtained from International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) B3 data. For the 9 months analyzed the linear correlation coefficient and the standard difference between the two datasets are 0.95 and 14 W/sq m (about 6% of the average shortwave irradiance), respectively, and the bias is 15 W/sq m (higher ERBE values). The bias, a strong function of ISCCP satellite viewing zenith angle, is mostly in the ISCCP-based estimates. Over snow/ice, vegetation, and desert no comparison is made with other satellite-based estimates, but theoretical calculations using the discrete ordinate method suggest that over highly reflective surfaces (snow/ice, desert) the model, which accounts crudely for multiple reflection between the surface and clouds, may substantially overestimate the absorbed solar energy flux at the surface, especially when clouds are optically thick. The monthly surface shortwave irradiance fields produced for 1986 exhibit the main features characteristic of the earth's climate. As found in other studies, our values are generally higher than Esbensen and Kushnir's by as much as 80 W/sq m in the tropical oceans. A cloud parameter, defined as the difference between clear-sky and actual irradiances normalized to top-of-atmosphere clear-sky irradiance, is also examined. This parameter, minimally affected by sun zenith angle, is higher in the midlatitude regions of storm tracks than in the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), suggesting that, on average, the higher cloud coverage in midlatitudes is more effective at reducing surface shortwave irradiance than opaque, convective, yet sparser clouds in the ITCZ. Surface albedo estimates are realistic, generally not exceeding 0.06 in the ocean, as high as 0.9 in polar regions, and reaching 0.5 in the Sahara and Arabian deserts.

Breon, Francois-Marie↗
NASA NTRS1994

Three-dimensional aspects of radiative transfer in remote sensing of precipitation: Application to the 1986 COHMEX storm

Several multifrequency techniques for passive microwave estimation of precipitation based on the absorption and scattering properties of hydrometers have been proposed in the literature. In the present study, plane-parallel limitations are overcome by using a model based on the discrete-ordinates method to solve the radiative transfer equation in three-dimensional rectangular domains. This effectively accounts for the complexity and variety of radiation problems encountered in the atmosphere. This investigation presents result for plane-parallel and three-dimensional radiative transfer for a precipitating system, discusses differences between these results, and suggests possible explanations for these differences. Microphysical properties were obtained from the Colorado State University Regional Atmospehric Modeling System and represent a hailstorm observed during the 1986 Cooperative Huntsville Meteorological Experiment. These properties are used as input to a three-dimensional radiative transfer model in order to simulate satellite observation of the storm. The model output consists of upwelling brightness temperatures at several of the frequencies on the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager. The radiative transfer model accounts for scattering and emission of atmospheric gases and hydrometers in liquid and ice phases. Brightness temperatures obtained from the three-dimensional model of this investigation indicate that horizontal inhomogeneities give rise to brightness temperature fields that can be quite different from fields obtained using plane-parallel radiative transfer theory. These differences are examined for various resolutions of the satellite sensor field of view. In adddition, the issue of boundary conditions for three-dimensional atmospheric radiative transfer is addressed.

Haferman, J. L.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Microwave radiative transfer through horizontally inhomogeneous precipitating clouds

Recent advances in cloud microphysical models have led to realistic three-dimensional distributions of cloud constituents. Radiative transfer schemes can make use of this detailed knowledge in order to study the effects of horizontal as well as vertical inhomogeneities within clouds. This study looks specifically at the differences between three-dimensional radiative transfer results and those obtained by plane parallel, independent pixel approximations in the microwave spectrum. A three-dimensional discrete ordinates method as well as a backward Monte Carlo method are used to calculate realistic radiances emerging from the cloud. Analyses between these models and independent pixel approximations reveal that plane parallel approximations introduce two distinct types of errors. The first error is physical in nature and is related to the fact that plane parallel approximations do not allow energy to leak out of dense areas into surrouding areas. In general, it was found that these errors are quite small for emission-dominated frequencies (37 GHz and lower) and that physical errors are highly pronounced only at scattering frequencies (85 GHz) where large deviations and biases up to 8 K averaged over the entire cloud were found. The second error is more geometric in nature and is related to the fact that plane parallel approximations cannot accommodate physical boundaries in the horizontal dimension for off-nadir viewing angles. The geometric errors were comparable in magnitude for all frequencies. Their magnitude, however, depends on a number of factors including the scheme used to deal with the edge, the nature of the surface, and the viewing angle.

Roberti, Laura↗
NASA NTRS1995

Numerical investigations in the backflow region of a vacuum plume

Four tasks were completed in this period and results were published in AIAA papers. First, a Boltzmann-2D code, was developed and applied to compute MSFC-A2 nozzle/plume flow field. It solved the two-dimensional Boltzmann-BGK equation using the Finite Difference Discrete Ordinate (FDDO) numerical technique. The code was validated by experimental data for one-dimensional shock structure predictions, paper 95-2056. Successful results for nozzle/plume flow simulation using the developed Boltzmann-2D code were presented at the 1995 AIAA Aerospace Science Conference, paper 95-0627. Second, a computer code solving two-dimensional Burnett equations was developed and applied to low-density nozzle flow field calculation. Results were also published at the 1994 AIAA Thermophysics Conference, paper 94-2055. Third, the developed two-dimensional Burnett code was extended to compute axisymmetric flow field inside MSFC-A2 nozzle, paper 95-2008. The computed nozzle exit conditions are used as input data for Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) plume calculation. Fourth, a DSMC code was modified to compute the exhausted plume near the nozzle exit and in the backflow region.

Liaw, Goang-Shin↗
NASA NTRS1994

Numerical Computation of Flame Spread over a Thin Solid in Forced Concurrent Flow with Gas-phase Radiation

Excerpts from a paper describing the numerical examination of concurrent-flow flame spread over a thin solid in purely forced flow with gas-phase radiation are presented. The computational model solves the two-dimensional, elliptic, steady, and laminar conservation equations for mass, momentum, energy, and chemical species. Gas-phase combustion is modeled via a one-step, second order finite rate Arrhenius reaction. Gas-phase radiation considering gray non-scattering medium is solved by a S-N discrete ordinates method. A simplified solid phase treatment assumes a zeroth order pyrolysis relation and includes radiative interaction between the surface and the gas phase.

Jiang, Ching-Biau↗
NASA NTRS1996

Retrieval of Surface Snow Grain Size and Melt Water from AVIRIS Spectra

The Earth's energy balance and hydrology are affected by the distribution and characteristics of snow cover on the surface. Snow grain size and snow melt influence surface albedo and hydrology. A model of snow reflectance that depends on both grain size and surface melt water was developed to derive these parameters from remote spectral measurements. This reflectance model is based on a discrete ordinate radiative transfer approach that uses Mie calculations of snow optical properties, which are based on the complex refractive index of ice and water. This snow model was linked to an atmospheric radiative transfer code and a nonlinear least squares fitting algorithm. The resulting combined algorithm was applied to an AVIRIS snow data set acquired over Mammoth Mountain, California. Maps of grain size and surface snow melt were generated that are consistent with the expected ranges and distributions for conditions at the site.

Green Robert O.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Delta Clipper-Experimental In-Ground Effect on Base-Heating Environment

A quasitransient in-ground effect method is developed to study the effect of vertical landing on a launch vehicle base-heating environment. This computational methodology is based on a three-dimensional, pressure-based, viscous flow, chemically reacting, computational fluid dynamics formulation. Important in-ground base-flow physics such as the fountain-jet formation, plume growth, air entrainment, and plume afterburning are captured with the present methodology. Convective and radiative base-heat fluxes are computed for comparison with those of a flight test. The influence of the laminar Prandtl number on the convective heat flux is included in this study. A radiative direction-dependency test is conducted using both the discrete ordinate and finite volume methods. Treatment of the plume afterburning is found to be very important for accurate prediction of the base-heat fluxes. Convective and radiative base-heat fluxes predicted by the model using a finite rate chemistry option compared reasonably well with flight-test data.

Wang, Ten-See↗
NASA NTRS1998

Numerical Modeling of Physical Vapor Transport in Contactless Crystal Growth Geometry

Growth from the vapor under conditions of limited contact with the walls of the growth ampoule is beneficial for the quality of the growing crystal due to reduced stress and contamination which may be caused by interactions with the growth container. The technique may be of a particular interest for studies on crystal growth under microgravity conditions: elimination of some factors affecting the crystal quality may make interpretation of space-conducted processes more conclusive and meaningful. For that reason, and as a part of our continuing studies on 'contactless' growth technique, we have developed a computational model of crystal growth process in such system. The theoretical model was built, and simulations were performed using the commercial computational fluid dynamics code, (CFD) ACE. The code uses an implicit finite volume formulation with a gray discrete ordinate method radiation model which accounts for the diffuse absorption and reflection of radiation throughout the furnace. The three-dimensional model computes the heat transfer through the crystal, quartz, and gas both inside and outside the ampoule, and mass transport from the source to the crystal and the sink. The heat transport mechanisms by conduction, natural convection, and radiation, and mass transport by diffusion and convection are modeled simultaneously and include the heat of the phase transition at the solid-vapor interfaces. As the thermal boundary condition, temperature profile along the walls of the furnace is used. For different thermal profiles and furnace and ampoule dimensions, the crystal growth rate and development of the crystal-vapor and source-vapor interfaces (change of the interface shape and location with time) are obtained. Super/under-saturation in the ampoule is determined and critical factors determining the 'contactless' growth conditions are identified and discussed. The relative importance of the ampoule dimensions and geometry, the furnace dimensions and its temperature, and the properties of the grown material are analyzed. The results of the simulations are compared with related experimental results on growth of CdTe, CdZnTe, ZnTe, PbTe, and PbSnTe crystals by this technique.

Palosz, W.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Bidirectional Reflectance of a Macroscopically Flat, High-Albedo Particulate Surface: An Efficient Radiative Transfer Solution and Applications to Regoliths

Many remote sensing applications rely on accurate knowledge of the bidirectional reflection function (BRF) of surfaces composed of discrete, randomly positioned scattering particles. Theoretical computations of BRFs for plane-parallel particulate layers are usually reduced to solving the radiative transfer equation (RTE) using one of existing exact or approximate techniques. Since semi-empirical approximate approaches are notorious for their low accuracy, violation of the energy conservation law, and ability to produce unphysical results, the use of numerically exact solutions of RTE has gained justified popularity. For example, the computation of BRFs for macroscopically flat particulate surfaces in many geophysical publications is based on the adding-doubling (AD) and discrete ordinate (DO) methods. A further saving of computer resources can be achieved by using a more efficient technique to solve the plane-parallel RTE than the AD and DO methods. Since many natural particulate surfaces can be well represented by the model of an optically semi-infinite, homogeneous scattering layer, one can find the BRF directly by solving the Ambartsumian's nonlinear integral equation using a simple iterative technique. In this way, the computation of the internal radiation field is avoided and the computer code becomes highly efficient and very accurate and compact. Furthermore, the BRF thus obtained fully obeys the fundamental physical laws of energy conservation and reciprocity. In this paper, we discuss numerical aspects and the computer implementation of this technique, examine the applicability of the Henyey-Greenstein phase function and the sigma-Eddington approximation in BRF and flux calculations, and describe sample applications demonstrating the potential effect of particle shape on the bidirectional reflectance of flat regolith surfaces. Although the effects of packing density and coherent backscattering are currently neglected, they can also be incorporated. The FORTRAN implementation of the technique is available on the World Wide Web, and can be applied to a wide range of remote sensing problems. BRF computations for undulated (macroscopically rough) surfaces are more complicated and often rely on time consuming Monte Carlo procedures. This approach is especially inefficient for optically thick, weakly absorbing media (e.g., snow and desert surfaces at visible wavelengths since a photon may undergo many internal scattering events before it exists the medium or is absorbed. However, undulated surfaces can often be represented as collections of locally flat tilted facets characterized by the BRF found from the traditional plane parallel RTE. In this way the MOnte Carlo procedure could be used only to evaluate the effects of surface shadowing and multiple surface reflections, thereby bypassing the time-consuming ray tracing inside the medium and providing a great savings of CPU time.

Mishchenko, Michael I.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Forward Monte Carlo Computations of Polarized Microwave Radiation

Microwave radiative transfer computations continue to acquire greater importance as the emphasis in remote sensing shifts towards the understanding of microphysical properties of clouds and with these to better understand the non linear relation between rainfall rates and satellite-observed radiance. A first step toward realistic radiative simulations has been the introduction of techniques capable of treating 3-dimensional geometry being generated by ever more sophisticated cloud resolving models. To date, a series of numerical codes have been developed to treat spherical and randomly oriented axisymmetric particles. Backward and backward-forward Monte Carlo methods are, indeed, efficient in this field. These methods, however, cannot deal properly with oriented particles, which seem to play an important role in polarization signatures over stratiform precipitation. Moreover, beyond the polarization channel, the next generation of fully polarimetric radiometers challenges us to better understand the behavior of the last two Stokes parameters as well. In order to solve the vector radiative transfer equation, one-dimensional numerical models have been developed, These codes, unfortunately, consider the atmosphere as horizontally homogeneous with horizontally infinite plane parallel layers. The next development step for microwave radiative transfer codes must be fully polarized 3-D methods. Recently a 3-D polarized radiative transfer model based on the discrete ordinate method was presented. A forward MC code was developed that treats oriented nonspherical hydrometeors, but only for plane-parallel situations.

Battaglia, A.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Some Remarks on GMRES for Transport Theory

We review some work on the application of GMRES to the solution of the discrete ordinates transport equation in one-dimension. We note that GMRES can be applied directly to the angular flux vector, or it can be applied to only a vector of flux moments as needed to compute the scattering operator of the transport equation. In the former case we illustrate both the delights and defects of ILU right-preconditioners for problems with anisotropic scatter and for problems with upscatter. When working with flux moments we note that GMRES can be used as an accelerator for any existing transport code whose solver is based on a stationary fixed-point iteration, including transport sweeps and DSA transport sweeps. We also provide some numerical illustrations of this idea. We finally show how space can be traded for speed by taking multiple transport sweeps per GMRES iteration. Key Words: transport equation, GMRES, Krylov subspace

Patton, Bruce W.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Sensitivity Studies for Space-based Measurement of Atmospheric Total Column Carbon Dioxide Using Reflected Sunlight

A series of sensitivity studies is carried out to explore the feasibility of space-based global carbon dioxide (CO2) measurements for global and regional carbon cycle studies. The detection method uses absorption of reflected sunlight in the CO2 vibration-rotation band at 1.58 microns. The sensitivities of the detected radiances are calculated using the line-by-line model (LBLRTM), implemented with the DISORT (Discrete Ordinates Radiative Transfer) model to include atmospheric scattering in this band. The results indicate that (a) the small (approx.1%) changes in CO2 near the Earth's surface are detectable in this CO2 band provided adequate sensor signal-to-noise ratio and spectral resolution are achievable; (b) the radiance signal or sensitivity to CO2 change near the surface is not significantly diminished even in the presence of aerosols and/or thin cirrus clouds in the atmosphere; (c) the modification of sunlight path length by scattering of aerosols and cirrus clouds could lead to large systematic errors in the retrieval; therefore, ancillary aerosol/cirrus cloud data are important to reduce retrieval errors; (d) CO2 retrieval requires good knowledge of the atmospheric temperature profile, e.g. approximately 1K RMS error in layer temperature; (e) the atmospheric path length, over which the CO2 absorption occurs, must be known in order to correctly interpret horizontal gradients of CO2 from the total column CO2 measurement; thus an additional sensor for surface pressure measurement needs to be attached for a complete measurement package.

Mao, Jianping↗
NASA NTRS2003

Sensitivity Studies for Space-based Measurements of Atmospheric Total Column Carbon Dioxide Using Reflected Sunlight

A series of sensitivity studies is carried out to explore the feasibility of space-based global carbon dioxide (CO2) measurements for global and regional carbon cycle studies. The detection method uses absorption of reflected sunlight in the CO2 vibration-rotation band at 1.58 micron. The sensitivities of the detected radiances are calculated using the line-by-line model (LBLRTM), implemented with the DISORT (Discrete Ordinates Radiative Transfer) model to include atmospheric scattering in this band. The results indicate that (a) the small (approx.1%) changes in CO2 near the Earth's surface are detectable in this CO2 band provided adequate sensor signal-to-noise ratio and spectral resolution are achievable; (b) the effects of other interfering constituents, such as water vapor, aerosols and cirrus clouds, on the radiance are significant but the overall effects of the modification of light path length on total back-to-space radiance sensitivity to CO2 change are minor for general cases, which means that generally the total column CO2 can be derived in high precision from the ratio of the on-line center to off-line radiances; (c) together with CO2 gas absorption aerosol/cirrus cloud layer has differential scattering which may result in the modification of on-line to off-line radiance ratio which could lead a large bias in the total column CO2 retrieval. Approaches to correct such bias need further investigation. (d) CO2 retrieval requires good knowledge of the atmospheric temperature profile, e.g. approximately 1K RMS error in layer temperature, which is achievable from new atmospheric sounders in the near future; (e) the atmospheric path length, over which the CO2 absorption occurs, should be known in order to correctly interpret horizontal gradients of CO2 from the total column CO2 measurement; thus an additional sensor for surface pressure measurement needs to be attached for a complete measurement package.

Mao, Jianping↗