The Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) Airborne Simulator (GCAS) was designed and built at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) as a technology demonstration instrument for the atmospheric science study group of GEO-CAPE and potential validation instrument for NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution (TEMPO) mission. GCAS was designed to make high altitude remote sensing observations of tropospheric and boundary layer pollutants, coastal and ocean water leaving radiances, and visible imagery for cloud and surface information. The instrument has participated in one flight campaign in Houston, TX as part of the Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality (DISCOVER-AQ) in September 2013. An overview of the instrument’s design, characterization, and preliminary slant column retrievals of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and ozone (O₃) during the DISCOVER-AQ campaign will be provided in this paper.

Date Published: 26 September 2014
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 9218, Earth Observing Systems XIX, 92181I (26 September 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2062058

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9218:
Earth Observing Systems XIX
James J. Butler; Xiaoxiong (Jack) Xiong; Xingfa Gu, Editor(s)