N. Mateshvili

In-flight performance and calibration of SPICAV SOIR onboard Venus Express

Solar occultation in the infrared, part of the Spectoscopy for Investigation of Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Venus (SPICAV) instrument onboard Venus Express, combines an echelle grating spectrometer with an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF). It performs solar occultation measurements in the IR region at high spectral resolution. The wavelength range probed allows a detailed chemical inventory of Venuss atmosphere above the cloud layer, highlighting the vertical distribution of gases. A general description of the instrument and its in-flight performance is given. Different calibrations and data corrections are investigated, in particular the dark current and thermal background, the nonlinearity and pixel-to-pixel variability of the detector, the sensitivity of the instrument, the AOTF properties, and the spectral calibration and resolution.

A global climatology of the mesospheric sodium layer from GOMOS data during the 2002–2008 period

This paper presents a climatology of the mesospheric sodium layer built from the processing of 7 years of GOMOS data. With respect to preliminary results already published for the year 2003, a more careful analysis was applied to the averaging of occultations inside the climatological bins (10 in latitude-1 month). Also, the slant path absorption lines of the Na doublet around 589 nm shows evidence of partial saturation that was responsible for an underestimation of the Na concentration in our previous results. The sodium climatology has been validated with respect to the Fort Collins lidar measurements and, to a lesser extent, to the OSIRIS 2003–2004 data. Despite the important natural sodium variability, we have shown that the Na vertical column has a marked semi-annual oscillation at low latitudes that merges into an annual oscillation in the polar regions,a spatial distribution pattern that was unreported so far. The sodium layer seems to be clearly influenced by the mesospheric global circulation and the altitude of the layer shows clear signs of subsidence during polar winter. The climatology has been parameterized by time-latitude robust fits to alCorrespondence to: D. Fussen (didier.fussen@oma.be) low for easy use. Taking into account the non-linearity of the transmittance due to partial saturation, an experimental approach is proposed to derive mesospheric temperatures from limb remote sounding measurements.

Tunable acousto-optic spectral imager for atmospheric composition measurements in the visible spectral domain

We describe a new spectral imaging instrument using a TeO(2) acousto-optical tunable filter (AOTF) operating in the visible domain (450-900 nm). It allows for fast (~1 second), monochromatic (FWHM ranges from 0.6 nm at 450 nm to 3.5 nm at 800 nm) picture acquisition with good spatial resolution. This instrument was designed as a breadboard of the visible channel of a new satellite-borne atmospheric limb spectral imager, named the Atmospheric Limb Tracker for the Investigation of the Upcoming Stratosphere (ALTIUS), that is currently being developed. We tested its remote sensing capabilities by observing the dense, turbulent plume exhausted by a waste incinerator stack at two wavelengths sensitive to NO(2). An average value of 6.0±0.4×10(17) molecules cm(-2) has been obtained for the NO(2) slant column density within the plume, close to the stack outlet. Although this result was obtained with a rather low accuracy, it demonstrates the potential of spectral imaging by using AOTFs in remote sensing.

Cloud detection in the upper troposphere‐lower stratosphere region via ACE imagers: A qualitative study

[1] Satellite-based limb occultation measurements are well suited for the detection and mapping of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) and cirrus clouds. Usually, cloud signatures are detected on aerosol extinction profiles. In this paper, ACE two-dimensional (2-D) imager data are used to show PSCs and cirrus clouds. Clouds can be clearly seen, with a good vertical and horizontal resolution (1 km), during sunset and sunrise. In addition, we discovered significant differences between stratospheric (PSCs) and tropospheric (cirrus) clouds. PSCs appear as ‘‘symmetric’’ layers, no horizontal or vertical ‘‘structure’’ is detected within the PSC, suggesting that PSCs are uniform clouds with a very large horizontal extent. On the other hand, cirrus cloud image geometry is not well-defined. In contrast to PSCs, cirrus clouds appear as irregular shaped clouds. These tropospheric clouds seem to have horizontal dimensions similar to the Sun on the image (25 km at the tangent point). The qualitative display of these different kinds of clouds, seen on the raw 2-D imager data, proves the ability of the imagers to be an efficient cloud detector in the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere (UTLS) region. Moreover, the structure of these clouds can be derived.

ALTIUS: a spaceborne AOTF-based UV-VIS-NIR hyperspectral imager for atmospheric remote sensing

Since the recent losses of several atmospheric instruments with good vertical sampling capabilities (SAGE II, SAGE III, GOMOS, SCIAMACHY,. . . ), the scientific community is left with very few sounders delivering concentration pro les of key atmospheric species for understanding atmospheric processes and monitoring the radiative balance of the Earth. The situation is so critical that at the horizon 2020, less than five such instruments will be on duty (most probably only 2 or 3), whereas their number topped at more than 15 in the years 2000. In parallel, recent inter-comparison exercises among the climate chemistry models (CCM) and instrument datasets have shown large differences in vertical distribution of constituents (SPARC CCMVal and Data Initiative), stressing the need for more vertically-resolved and accurate data at all latitudes. In this frame, the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (IASB-BIRA) proposed a gap-filler small mission called ALTIUS (Atmospheric Limb Tracker for the Investigation of the Upcoming Stratosphere), which is currently in preliminary design phase (phase B according to ESA standards). Taking advantage of the good performances of the PROBA platform (PRoject for On-Board Autonomy) in terms of pointing precision and accuracy, on-board processing ressources, and agility, the ALTIUS concept relies on a hyperspectral imager observing limb-scattered radiance and solar/stellar occultations every orbit. The objective is twofold: the imaging feature allows to better assess the tangent height of the sounded air masses (through easier star tracker information validation by scene details recognition), while its spectral capabilities will be good enough to exploit the characteristic signatures of many molecular absorption cross-sections (O3, NO2, CH4, H2O, aerosols,...). The payload will be divided in three independent optical channels, associated to separated spectral ranges (UV: 250- 450 nm, VIS: 440-800 nm, NIR: 900-1800 nm). This approach also offers better risk mitigation in case of failure in one channel. In each channel, the spectral filter will be an acousto-optical tunable filter (AOTF). Such devices offer reasonable étendue with good spectral resolution and excellent robustness and compactness. TeO2-based AOTFs have already been used in space missions towards Mars and Venus (MEX and VEX, ESA). While such TeO2 crystals are common in VIS-NIR applications, they are not transparent below 350 nm. Recent progress towards UV AOTFs have been made with the advent of KDP-based filters. Through collaboration with the Moscow State University (MSU), several experiments were conducted on a KDP AOTF and gave confidence on this material. Here, we present the general concept of ALTIUS and its optical design with particular attention on the AOTF. Several results obtained with optical breadboards for the UV and VIS ranges will be exposed, such as the O3 and NO2 absorption cross-section measurements, or spectral images. These results illustrate the spectral and optical performances to be expected from an AOTF-based hyperspectral imager. Their implications for ALTIUS will be discussed