The GLO Instrument
Abstract
Advanced solar occultation sensors, miniature in size and complexity, are now possible with modern space-qualified components and measurement techniques. This poster describes the GLO (Gfcr Limb Occultation) instrument, a static sensor with cubesat dimensions that performs solar occultation measurements using a combination of broadband and gas filter correlation channels. GLO can be applied to measure temperature, pressure, aerosol, and trace gases from cloud-top to the lower thermosphere. Though GLO has a broad range of applicability, for this poster we present a version of GLO designed for the UTLS. A feasibility study for such an instrument demonstrates unprecedented fidelity in retrieved profiles, with sub kilometer vertical resolution, of temperature, pressure, aerosol extinction from 0.4 to 4 microns and trace gases that are key to understanding UTLS exchange. Using a single 2D detector array to image the sun for all channels simultaneously, a 10 x 10 x 20 cm instrument is shown to provide UTLS profile measurements of geophysical parameters that are predicted to match or surpass the quality of such profiles from previous limb sensors. A suite of GLO instruments in different orbits can be used to provide global coverage that rivals limb emission sensors, but with occultation measurement capabilities in calibration, precision and accuracy.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFMSA31A1953G
- Keywords:
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- 0305 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Aerosols and particles;
- 3360 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Remote sensing;
- 3362 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Stratosphere/troposphere interactions;
- 3394 ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES / Instruments and techniques