Recent Advances in SAGE II Data Processing: Version 6.2

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE~II) has been operating aboard the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite since October 1984 and provided critical long term measurements of the profiles of ozone, aerosol extinction, and other trace constituents from the mid-troposphere to the lower mesosphere. A major revision, Version 6.0, of the SAGE~II data processing was introduced in June 2000 and a minor revision, primarily affecting { {NO_2}} retrievals, was released in October 2001. Recently, SAGE~II version 6.2 was released. This version is primarily focused on improving water vapor and the correction of an altitude registration problem that initially appeared in 2000 data. The apparent altitude problem was identified as solely the result of faulty spacecraft ephemeris data, but it was particularly difficult to identify since it was subtle, episodic, began shortly after the change in millennia, and occurred in the same time frame as the instrument suffered a mechanical malfunction. Corrected ephemeris data has been obtained and is used in the new version. This presentation focuses on the identification and correction of the altitude errors and summarizes the other features of the latest release version.