The measurement of tropospheric carbon monoxide with gas filter radiometers is examined on the basis of the MAPS experiment. The performance characteristics of an instrument that uses the MAPS detectors, broadband filters, and gas cells in a system similar to the GASCOFIL system described by Morrow and Nicholls (1985) is determined. The signal function for two carbon monoxide channels of the MAPS instrument as it was flown in 1981 is shown. The measurements of the lower pressure channel are weighted to a higher altitude. The signal function, when integrated over altitude and multiplied by the normalization constant, yields the value of the signal. Both signal functions approach zero at the top because the gas concentration approaches zero. The present data reduction technique assumes that there are no clouds in the field of view. If clouds are present, the inferred carbon monoxide mixing ratio is too high, and those points must be rejected from the data set.

Date Published: 1 September 1991
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 1491, Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Chemistry, (1 September 1991); doi: 10.1117/12.46642

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1491:
Remote Sensing of Atmospheric Chemistry
James L. McElroy; Robert J. McNeal, Editor(s)