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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. The approach leads to the integration of a simple differential equation related to the observed transmittance in the absence of other absorbing molecules along the optical path. The algorithm does not rely on the absolute knowledge of the radiometer pointing angle that is related to the accurate knowledge of the satellite attitude. We successfully applied the proposed method to the measurements performed by two past occultation experiments: GOMOS for stellar and ORA for solar occultations. The developed algorithm (named ARID) will be applied to the imaging of solar occultations in a forthcoming pico-satellite mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a passive method for the retrieval of atmospheric pressure profiles based on the measurement of the apparent flattening of the solar disk as observed through the atmosphere by a spaceborne imager. This method was applied to simulated sunsets. It relies on accurate representation of the solar disk, including its limb darkening, and how its image is affected by atmospheric refraction. The Zernike polynomials are used to quantify the flattening in the Sun images. The inversion algorithm relies on a transfer matrix providing the link between the atmospheric pressure profile and a sequence of Zernike moments computed on the sunset frames. The transfer matrix is determined by a training dataset of pressure profiles generated from a standard climatology. The performance and limitations of the method are assessed by two test cases. Pressure profiles similar to the training dataset show that retrieval error can be up to 10 times smaller than the natural variability in the lower mesosphere, and up to 500 times smaller in the upper troposphere. Tests with other independent profiles emphasize the need for better representativeness of the training dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which focuses on the passive method for retrieving the atmospheric pressure profiles based on the measurement of the apparent flattening of the solar disk as observed through the atmosphere by a spaceborne imager. It says that the accurate simulations of the solar occultation and uses the Zernike moments to quantify the flattening is involved in the method. Moreover, the Zernike moments can be a useful tool for identifying the mesospheric and stratospheric clouds.