A novel daytime ozone profile data set was created from the measurements of the Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars (GOMOS) instrument on board the Envisat satellite. These stratospheric ozone profiles cover the years 2002-2012 with good accuracy, vertical resolution, and global coverage. Hide

In this paper, we consider occultations of celestial bodies through the atmospheric limb from low Earth orbit satellites and we show how the usual change of tangent altitude associated with atmospheric refraction is inseparably connected to a variation of the observed apparent intensity, for extended and pointlike sources. We demonstrate, in the regime of weak refraction angles, that atmospheric optical dilution and image deformation are strictly concomitant. Hide

The plane-carried Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere (GLORIA) measures the thermal radiation emitted by gases and particles in the atmosphere, in a height range of about 5-20 km. In between these measurements, GLORIA is pointed at known radiation sources for calibration. Noise in these calibration measurements can lead to artefacts in the final products. In this paper, we present new techniques which exploit GLORIA's imaging capabilities to reduce these noise effects. Hide

Sastrugi are surface roughness elements on Antarctica that modify the anisotropy of reflected shortwave solar radiation. This can create biases in the shortwave flux inverted from radiances measured by the satellite-borne Clouds and the Earths's Radiant Energy System instruments. Here we provide a detailed description of the methodology we use to account for their effect and examples of the reduction in bias from using our new method. Hide

We demonstrate a calibration method for the three-dimensional wind measurements on a research aircraft, which are strongly influenced by dynamical effects during flight. We correct these errors step by step after an extensive test flight program including new methods to gain optimum correction coefficients and a direct estimation of the residual errors. The overall error, estimated with a novel error propagation scheme, is 0.3 m/s for the horizontal and 0.2 m/s for the vertical wind. Hide

Using infrared sounders on satellite platforms to monitor concentrations of atmospheric CFC-12, a stratospheric-ozone-depleting molecule with a long lifetime, crucially requires accurate laboratory spectroscopic data. This work describes a new high-resolution infrared absorption cross-section data set for remote-sensing purposes; this dataset improves upon the one currently available in the HITRAN and GEISA databases. Hide

We report results from simultaneous, high-resolution and collocated measurements of cloud microphysical and turbulence properties during several warm cloud events at the Umweltforschungsstation Schneefernerhaus (UFS) on Zugspitze in the German Alps. The data gathered were found to be representative of observations made with similar instrumentation in free clouds. Hide

We deal with surface turbulent flux calculations on a tropical glacier and analyse the related errors. We use data from two eddy-covariance systems and wind speed and temperature profiles collected during a 2-month measurement campaign undertaken within the atmospheric surface layer of the glacier. We show the largest error sources are related to roughness length uncertainties and to nonstationarity of the flow induced by the interaction of outer-layer eddies with the surface-layer flow. Hide

This work has the aim of clarifying the consistency of 2-D video disdrometer devices in deriving size, velocity and shape parameters of solid hydrometeors. The need of implementing a matching algorithm suitable for mixed- and solid-phase precipitation is highlighted as an essential step in data evaluation. For this purpose simple reproducible experiments with solid steel spheres and irregularly shaped Styrofoam particles are conducted. Hide

Intercomparison of precipitable water vapour from ERA-Interim, Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, GPS and radiosonde over complex topography of Ethiopia was made for the first time over a data-void region of eastern Africa. The study reveals weakness of ERA-Interim reanalysis in capturing diurnal and to some extent seasonal variabilities. The weakness can be improved through additional data assimilation, adaptation of convection and land surface modules to the reality in the region. Hide

This paper depicts several fields of application of a new analytical method, which expands the well-established EC/OC method, which enables one to measure the carbon content (organic and elemental) of particulate aerosols. It was coupled to photo-ionization mass spectrometry to get structural information of the evolving carbonaceous species. Application fields such as smoke chamber-, ambient - and wood combustion particles were addressed, covering exemplary primary and secondary aerosol sources. Hide

This paper presents a new method for reducing the impact of residual ionospheric errors in geophysical climatologies derived from GPS radio occultation measurements. Hide

Measurements of total column ozone have been obtained by the Dobson #061 spectrophotometer and the Pandora spectrometer system from the roof of the NOAA building in Boulder, Colorado. A comparison of 1 year (17 Dec 2013 to 18 Dec 2014) of ozone data shows that the two instruments are in close agreement after a separate correction was applied to the retrieved ozone data from each instrument. Good agreement was also obtained between Pandora and two satellite data sets, AURA OMI and SUOMI OMPS. Hide

This work presents a study on the sensitivity of two independent satellite cloud height retrievals to cloud vertical distribution. The difference in sensitivity of an oxygen-A absorption band and a thermal infrared based cloud height retrieval, the former being more sensitive to cloud vertical distribution, is exploited by relating the cloud height differences to cloud vertical extent. This could potentially provide additional information on cloud vertical distribution on a global scale. Hide

Here we demonstrate the potential for estimating lower tropospheric CH4 concentrations through the combination of free-tropospheric methane measurements from the Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) and XCH4 (dry-mole air fraction of methane) from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite - Thermal And Near-infrared for carbon Observation (GOSAT TANSO). Hide

We introduce a new dynamic statistical optimization algorithm to initialize ionosphere-corrected bending angles of Global Navigation Satellite System-based radio occultation measurements. The new algorithm is evaluated against the OPSv5.6 algorithm developed by the Wegener Center using both simulated and real observed data. It is found that the algorithm can significantly reduce the random errors of optimized bending angles. The retrieved refractivity and temperature profiles are also benefited. Hide

Using multiple frequencies in cloud and precipitation radars enables them to be both sensitive enough to detect thin clouds and to penetrate heavy precipitation, profiling the entire vertical structure of the atmospheric component of the water cycle. Here, we evaluate the performance of a potential future three-frequency space-based radar system by simulating its observations using data from a high-resolution global atmospheric model. Hide

This manuscript belongs and is important to the environmental and atmospheric science, particularly cloud formation and cloud seeding, and presents a setup to apply Second Harmonic Generation spectroscopy to heterogeneous freezing research. We describe the setup and provide first results on temperature-dependent structural changes of water on the surfaces of two relevant atmospheric aerosol substances (sapphire and mica as poor and good ice nucleators, respectively). Hide

Case studies of combined vertical-velocity measurements of Doppler lidar, cloud radar and wind profiler are presented. The measurements were taken at the Meteorological Observatory, Lindenberg, Germany. Synergistic products are presented that are derived from the vertical-velocity measurements of the three instruments: a comprehensive classification mask of vertically moving atmospheric targets and the terminal fall velocity of water droplets and ice crystals corrected for vertical air motion. Hide

This study presents the results of an exhaustive characterization of a CRM instrument developed at Mines Douai to measure total OH reactivity in the troposphere. To do so, a suite of laboratory experiments was conducted to assess the different corrections that need to be applied during data processing. The results were then compared to simulations from a 0-D box model, including two different chemical mechanisms, leading to reasonable agreement. Hide