Water Vapor and Temperature Profiles from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2

Robert Nelson,  Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Caltech,  robert.r.nelson@jpl.nasa.gov (Presenter)
Annmarie Eldering,  Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Caltech,  annmarie.eldering@jpl.nasa.gov
Susan Kulawik,  Bay Area Environmental Research Institute,  susan.s.kulawik@nasa.gov

The NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) was launched in 2014 with the goal of precisely measuring carbon dioxide. In order to fit the measured near-infrared radiances properly, other physical parameters must be included in the state vector. Two such parameters are water vapor and temperature. Up until now, the NASA Atmospheric Carbon Observations from Space (ACOS) optimal estimation retrieval simply solved for a multiplicative scaling factor on an a priori water vapor profile and an additive offset on an a priori temperature profile. However, preliminary synthetic studies have indicated that both water vapor and temperature have 2-3 degrees of freedom in the vertical column and that solving for properly constrained profiles can lead to a reduction of error in column-mean CO2. Here, we present results using real measurements and assess the error statistics and bias correction parameters.

Poster: Poster_Nelson__114_25.pdf 

Presentation Type: Poster

Session: 1.5a Results from current missions

Session Date: Monday (6/14) 12:00 PM