Summary

Description

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a facility instrument aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. In combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), AIRS constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors. AIRS data will be generated continuously. Global coverage will be obtained twice daily (day and night) on a 1:30pm sun synchronous orbit from a 705-km altitude. In particular, this support product focuses on the tropospheric CO2 retrieval. In general, AIRS Support Products include higher vertical resolution profiles of the quantities found in the Standard Product plus intermediate output (e.g., microwave-only retrieval), research products such as the abundance of trace gases, and detailed quality assessment information. The Support Product profiles contain 100 pressure levels between 1100 and .016 mb; this higher resolution will simplify the generation of radiances using forward models, though the vertical information content is no greater than in the Standard Product profiles. The horizontal resolution is 50 km. The intended users of the Support Product are researchers interested in generating forward radiance, or in examining research products, and the AIRS algorithm development team. The Support Product will be generated at all locations as Standard Products. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data. This will normally correspond to approximately 1/15 of an orbit but exactly 45 scanlines of AMSU-A data or 135 scanlines of AIRS and HSB data. (The Shortname for this product is AIRX2SPC).