CAMEX-3 Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI)

Table of Contents

Introduction
Principles of operation
Data Naming Conventions and Data Format
Other Andros Island Sonde Data
Selected References
Contact Information

Introduction

The Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) is a two band BOMEM-100 Michelson interferometer consisting of two detectors (5-20 um and 3-5 um), scene imaging scan mirror, and a two point calibration system. Every ten minutes a spectrum at one wavenumber resolution is produced from 3-20 um with an absolute accuracy of 10f ambient radiance determined by intercomparisons between other AERI instrument and a NIST blackbody reference.  AERI measured atmospheric radiances can be used to retrieve:

AERI radiances have several useful scientific purposes for the study of the atmosphere. Firstly AERI provides absolutely calibrated radiances which can be used for forward calculation comparisons of radiosonde and LIDAR profiles. This provides a reference to the airborne and ground based remote sensing instruments used in CAMEX-3, which profile atmospheric state. Secondly AERI radiances contain valuable temperature and water vapor information which can be used to retrieve planetary boundary layer thermodynamics.

Principles of operation

This information is found on the AERI Engineering page.  

Data Naming Conventions and Data Format

AERI data is archived into one composite tar file named:

cmx3aeri_composit_dataset.tar

When untarred, there will be created three directories: aerirad,aerigoes and aerisonde. Each of the first two directories (aerirad and aerigoes)  contains two subdirectories- browse and data. In each are the following:

aerirad

aerirad/data: datafiles in netcdf format of the form 98ddd_aeri_c#.cdf where ddd is the day of the year and # is either 1 or 2 depending on the particular interferometer from which data was collected.

aerirad/browse: gif files showing AERI radiance summaries of the form 98ddd_aeri_sum.gif.  

aerigoes

aerigoes/data: datafiles in nedcdf format with filenames in the form 98dddAG.cdf

aerigoes/browse: .gif files showing time series of mixing ratio and potential temperature derived using AERI measurements and GOES soundings of the form 98ddd_aeri-goes.gif.

aerisonde

aerisonde/uwsonde_data.tar: when untarred, produces datafiles in ascii and in netcdf format with filenames of the form 98ddd_tttt_uwsonde.txt or .cdf where tttt is the sonde launch time in UCT.

aerisonde/uwsonde_gifs.tar: when untarred produces images of the form 98ddd_tttt_uw_sonde.gif.

AERI radiance, retrieval and sounding data are stored in netcdf (.cdf) format. Libraries to read this format from Unidata are available for Fortran and C. This format can easily be read in both IDL and Matlab.

Additionally, all of the images: radiance (as in aerirad/browse above), mixing ratio/potential temperature (in the aerigoes/data directory) and the skew-T log P diagrams (in aerisonde) are available on line at:  ftp://microwave.nsstc.nasa.gov/pub/browse/camex3/cmx3aeri.

Other Andros Island Sonde Data

There was another rawinsonde dataset collected at Andros Island during the CAMEX-3 campaign. Collected by the Wallops Island Test Group, it is contained in the dataset CAMEX-3 Andros Island Radiosonde/Rawindsonde Data. Order by contacting GHRC User Services.

Selected References

The AERI instrument and software has several references available. The most pertinent to the temperature and moisture retrieval algorithm are:

Feltz, W. F., W. L. Smith, R. O. Knuteson, H. R. Revercomb, H. B. Howell, Harold H. Woolf, 1998: Meteorological Applications of Temperature and Water Vapor Retrievals from the Ground-Based Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI). Jour. Appl. Meteor., 37, 857-875.

Smith, W. L., W. F. Feltz, R. O. Knuteson, H. R. Revercomb, H. B. Howell, Harold H. Woolf, 1998: The Retrieval of Planetary Boundary Layer Structure Using Ground Based Infrared Spectral Radiance Measurements. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 16, 323-333.

Contact Information

Data can be ordered and questions addressed at http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/.

To order this data or for further information, please contact: Global Hydrology Resource Center User Services 320 Sparkman Drive Huntsville, AL 35805 Phone: 256-961-7932 E-mail: ghrc@eos.nasa.gov

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NASA Information Contact: Michael Goodman, Global Hydrology and Climate Center GHRC Web Curator: GHRC Web Team Last update: Tuesday, 12-Jun-2007 10:24:51 CDT If you have trouble viewing or navigating this page, please contact GHRC User Services. U.S. Government Compliance report.