Novel Cross-Band Relative Absorption (CoBRA) technique For Measuring Atmospheric Species

We describe a methodology called Cross-Band Relative Absorption (CoBRA) we have implemented to significantly reduce interferences due to variations in atmospheric temperature and pressure in molecular mixing ration measurements [1-4]. The interference reduction is achieved through automatic compensation based on selecting spectral line pairs exhibiting similar evolution behavior under varying atmospheric conditions. The method is applicable to a wide range of molecules including CO2 and CH4 which can be matched with O2 or any other well-mixed atmospheric molecule. Such matching results in automatic simultaneous adjustments of the spectral line shapes at all times with a high precision under varying atmospheric conditions of temperature and pressure. We present the results of our selected CoBRA analysis based on line-by-line calculations and the Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) dataset including more recent evaluation of the error contributions due to water vapor interference effects. References: 1) N. S. Prasad, D. Pliutau, 'Cross-band relative absorption technique for the measurement of molecular mixing ratios.', Optics Express, Vol. 21, Issue 11, pp. 13279-13292 (2013) 2) D. Pliutau and N. S. Prasad, "Cross-band Relative Absorption Technique for Molecular Mixing Ratio Determination," in CLEO: 2013, OSA Technical Digest (online) (Optical Society of America, 2013), paper CW3L.4. 3) Denis Pliutau; Narasimha S. Prasad; 'Semi-empirical validation of the cross-band relative absorption technique for the measurement of molecular mixing ratios',.Proc. SPIE 8731, Laser Radar Technology and Applications XVIII, 87310L (May 20, 2013); doi:10.1117/12.2016661. 4) Denis Pliutau,; Narasimha S. Prasad; 'Comparative analysis of alternative spectral bands of CO2 and O2 for the sensing of CO2 mixing ratios' Proc. SPIE 8718, Advanced Environmental, Chemical, and Biological Sensing Technologies X, 87180L (May 31, 2013); doi:10.1117/12.2016337.