Case Studies and Analyses of AIRS Retrievals over Ocean

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on the Aqua spacecraft observes nearly 3 million high-resolution infrared spectra daily. These observations, along with those from companion instruments Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit and Humidity Sounder for Brazil, are inverted via a retrieval algorithm to obtain geophysical quantities at about 300,000 50-km wide fields of view daily. Retrieved quantities include cloud cleared radiances, sea surface temperatures, cloud fraction, cloud top pressures and temperatures, and profiles of temperature and water vapor. We describe here case studies of retrieved quantities for several atmospheric regimes observed by the AIRS instrument suite over ocean during the month of January 2003 in the latitude band 40 S to 40 N. These regimes include shallow and deep tropical convection, regions of temperature inversions with associated low-level clouds, and conditions near the midlatitude storm tracks. These studies are intended to establish the foundation for more detailed examinations of atmospheric phenomena observed by AIRS. We also present initial results of a multiparameter analysis of AIRS retrieved products using a statistical clustering method.