Evaluation of the OMPS Limb Profiler stratospheric aerosol inversion algorithm

A multi-spectral retrieval of the stratospheric aerosol extinction profile is a critical step in the ozone inversion algorithm developed for the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) Limb Profiler (LP) instrument, which is scheduled for launch on the NPOESS Preparatory Program (NPP) satellite. This work provides an evaluation and testing of the aerosol retrieval algorithm using limb scattered radiances obtained by the OSIRIS instrument and a comparison of the results with coincident SAGE II occultation measurements. Features of the inversion include the retrieval of one moment of the particle size distribution and the implementation of a computationally efficient pseudo-multiple scattering kernel.