Characterizing Tropospheric Trace Gas Retrievals from the Cross-track Infrared Sounder

The Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) onboard the NOAA/NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite has made global daily observations of temperature, moisture and trace gases since 2011. CrIS instruments on NOAA/NASA Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) spacecraft will continue this tropospheric measurement record for the next two decades. Tropospheric soundings of carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH₄), ozone (O₃), and other trace gases are generated by the NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System’s (NUCAPS’s) combined retrievals of CrIS and the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS). High accuracy NOAA/NASA aircraft field measurements of tropospheric trace gas and moisture distributions are compared to NUCAPS CrIS/ATMS retrievals of these products. Atmospheric chemical-transport models constrained by the aircraft observations extend the spatial and temporal domain available for these comparisons to NUCAPS data. This combination of aircraft and model information provides objective characterizations of the tropospheric columns, spatial resolution, and vertical sensitivity for NUCAPS CO, CH₄, O₃, and other trace gases.