title: Tomographic retrieval of atmospheric parameters from infrared limb emission observations.
abstract: Typical inversion of limb-sounding measurements assumes local horizontal homogeneity of the atmosphere. This simplification corresponds to spectral radiance errors that can exceed the noise level of a typical infrared instrument by a factor of 10 and causes errors in retrieved state parameters. To avoid these errors and to take the horizontal structure of the atmosphere into account, a two-dimensional (2D) tomographic sequential estimation approach is described. Application to temperature retrievals from simulated measurements yields typical retrieval errors of the order of 1 K, and a one-dimensional retrieval with the same synthetic measurements shows differences to the true values up to 10 K in regions with strong horizontal inhomogeneities. The horizontal resolution of the 2D retrieval is even better (up to 40 km) than the horizontal tangent point spacing.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Postfach 3640, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany. tilman.steck@imk.fzk.de
authors.forename: Tilman
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Steck
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Höpfner
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: von Clarmann
authors.forename: Udo
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Grabowski