Atmospheric Pressure Measurements using the Oxygen A Band

We report on the atmospheric pressure measurements using a fiber-based laser system using the oxygen A-band. Remote measurements of atmospheric temperature and pressure are required for a number of scientific applications including trace gas detection, weather prediction, and climate modeling. Recently there has been intense interest to provide accurate measurements of tropospheric CO2 abundance with global-coverage, high spatial and temporal resolution in order to quantify processes that regulate CO2 storage by the land and oceans. It is becoming increasingly important to understand the nature and processes of the CO2 sinks and sources, on a global scale, in order to make predictions of future climate change. The ultimate goal of CO2 remote sensing is to derive CO2 concentration in the atmosphere in terms of mole fraction in unit of parts-per-million (ppmv) with regard to dry air. Therefore, both CO2 and dry air number of molecules in the atmosphere are needed in deriving this quantity. O2 is stable and uniformly mixed in the atmosphere. The measurement of O2 absorption in the atmosphere can thus be used to infer dry air number of molecules and then be used to calculate CO2 concentration. With the knowledge of atmospheric water vapor, we can further estimate the total surface pressure that can be used to better define both O2 and CO2 line shape for better retrievals, as both CO2 and O2 absorptions in the near infrared are a function of pressure as well as temperature. Our technique uses several on- and off-line wavelengths tuned to the O2 absorption line. The choice of wavelengths allows us to measure the pressure using two absorptions in the Oxygen A-band. Our retrieval algorithm fits the O2 lineshapes and derives the pressure. Our measurements compare favorably with a local weather monitor mounted outside our laboratory and a local weather station at Andrews Air Force base.