Airs

Abstract

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), the hyperspectral infrared sounder on the NASA Aqua mission, both improves operational weather prediction and provides high-quality research data for climate studies. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), and its two companion microwave instruments, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), form the integrated atmospheric sounding system flying on the Earth Observing System (EOS) Aqua spacecraft since its launch in May 2002.1 The primary scientific achievement of AIRS has been to improve weather prediction (Le Marshall et al. 2005a,b,c) and to study the water and energy cycle (Tian et al. 2006). AIRS also provides information on several greenhouse gases. The measurement goal of AIRS is the retrieval of temperature and precipitable-water vapor profiles with accuracies approaching those of conventional radiosondes. In the following text we use the terms AIRS and AIRS-AMSU-HSB interchangeably.1 The HSB ceased functioning after 5 February 2003. This did not have an impact on the accuracy, coverage, or resolution of the AIRS core data product, but its loss has had a significant impact on AIRS research products.A comprehensive set of articles on AIRS and AMSU design details, prelaunch calibration, and prelaunch retrieval performance expectations were published in a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (2003, vol. 41, no. 2). This paper discusses the performance of AIRS and examines how it is meeting its operational and research objectives based on the experience of more than 2 yr with AIRS data. We describe the science background and the performance of AIRS in terms of the accuracy and stability of its observed spectral radiances. We examine the validation of the retrieved temperature and water vapor profiles against collocated operational radiosondes, and then we assess the impact thereof on numerical weather forecasting of the assimilation of the AIRS spectra and the retrieved temperature. We close the paper with a discussion on the retrieval of several minor tropospheric constituents from AIRS spectra.

A multi-wavelength classification method for polar stratospheric cloud types using infrared limb spectra

“…In this study, we use radiance measurements of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) (Aumann et al, 2003;Chahine et al, 2006) to detect gravity waves in the polar lower stratosphere. AIRS is one of six instruments aboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Aqua satellite.…”

A 6-year global cloud climatology from the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder AIRS and a statistical analysis in synergy with CALIPSO and CloudSat

“…Launched in May 2002 onboard the Earth Observing System (EOS) platform Aqua, the AIRS instrument (Aumann et al, 2003;Chahine et al, 2006) provides very high spectral resolution measurements of Earth emitted radiation in three spectral bands (3.74-4.61 µm, 6.20-8.22 µm and 8.80-15.40 µm) using 2378 channels with a spectral resolution given by λλ=0.0008. The polar orbiting Aqua satellite provides observations at 01:30 and 13:30 local time (LT).…”

Airborne and satellite remote sensing of the mid-infrared water vapour continuum

“…However, for this reason, the atmospheric infrared sounder (AIRS) channel at 2616 cm −1 has frequently been cited as a 'super window channel' and used to infer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) directly on account of assumed high transmittance [26]. SSTs derived in this way may need revision based on a new understanding of continuum strength in this spectral region.…”