Satellite-borne remote sensing of trace gases (SAT)

We investigate the complex interaction of chemical and dynamical processes in the Earth's atmosphere on basis of distributions of trace gases, aerosols, clouds and temperature which we derive from spectral measurements of satellite remote sensing instruments. Our work field covers processing of satellite data and their validation, the research on physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere on the basis of the retrieved distributions of temperature, particles and trace gases, and the development and implementation of related satellite data analysis algorithms. The current focus of our work is the MIPAS-Envisat mission. The MIPAS satellite data derived by our group can be accessed here. Besides our work with MIPAS we are involved in the preparation of future space missions. On this website you find information about our publications, MIPAS-Envisat data, the annual MIPAS Data User Meeting, our radiative transfer model KOPRA, the team and our projects, as well as some pictures.

Highlight of the month:

Data inhomogeneities can distort trend analysis

The temperature trend in the tropics at 25 km altitude as measured by MIPAS (red x-symbols) is slightly negative (red lines). A bias of -2K superimposed to the data subset 2002-2004 (blue boxes) implies an artificial positive trend if ignored (dotted blue line) or considered as additional independent error (dashed blue line). Correct treatment of the data inhomogeneity by consideration of the full data error covariance matrix leads to the correct trend (blue solid line), although no debiasing was done prior to the fit. More

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