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The second NASA Earth Venture Mission, Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory (GeoCarb), will provide measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), and solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) from Geostationary Orbit (GEO). The GeoCarb mission will deliver daily maps of column concentrations of CO2, CH4, and CO over the observed landmasses in the Americas at a spatial resolution of roughly 10 x 10 km. Persistent measurements of CO2, CH4, CO, and SIF will contribute significantly to resolving carbon emissions and illuminating biotic processes at urban to continental scales, which will allow the improvement of modeled biogeochemical processes in Earth System Models as well as monitor the response of the biosphere to disturbance. This is essential to improve understanding of the Carbon-Climate connection. In this paper, we introduce the instrument and the GeoCarb Mission, and we demonstrate the potential scientific contribution of the mission through a series of CO2 and CH4 simulation experiments. We find that GeoCarb will be able to constrain emissions at urban to continental spatial scales on weekly to annual time scales. The GeoCarb mission particularly builds upon the Orbiting Carbon Obserevatory-2 (OCO-2), which is flying in Low Earth Orbit.

Recently, a number of papers have addressed the use of pedigrees in the study of wild populations, highlighting the value of pedigrees in conservation management. We used pedigrees to study the horses (Equus caballus) of Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland, USA, one of a small number of free-ranging animal populations that have been the subject of long-term studies. This population grew from 28 in 1968 to 175 in 2001, causing negative impacts on the island ecosystem. To minimize these effects, an immunocontraception program was instituted, and horse numbers are slowly decreasing. However, there is concern that this program may negatively affect the genetic health of the herd. We found that although mitochondrial DNA diversity is low, nuclear diversity is comparable to that of established breeds. Using genetic data, we verified and amended maternal pedigrees that had been primarily based on behavioral data and inferred paternity using genetic data along with National Park Service records of the historic ranges of males. The resulting pedigrees enabled us to examine demography, founder contributions, rates of inbreeding and loss of diversity over recent generations, as well as the level of kinship among horses. We then evaluated the strategy of removing individuals (using nonlethal means) with the highest mean kinship values. Although the removal strategy increased the retained diversity of founders and decreased average kinship between individuals, it disproportionately impacted sizes of the youngest age classes. Our results suggest that a combined strategy of controlled breeding and immunocontraception would be more effective than removing individuals with high mean kinships in preserving the long-term health and viability of the herd. © 2010 The Wildlife Society.

The tropospheric Infrared Mapping Spectrometers (TIMS) operating at 2.33 and 4.68 µm were developed to demonstrate retrieval of atmospheric CO in several layers. In this presentation we describe the architecture of the 2.33 TIMS spectrometer, recap its development, develop its noise model, and validate that against TIMS demonstration data. We briefly describe a multi-channel geostationary space application, called geoCARB, of the TIMS technology and use the model to predict its signal to noise ratio (SNR).

Resolution of important outstanding questions in air quality, climate change and ozone layer stability demands global observations of multiple chemical species with high horizontal and vertical resolution from the boundary layer to the stratopause. We present a mission concept that delivers the needed atmospheric composition observations, along with cloud ice and water vapor data needed for improvements in climate and weather forecasting models. The mission comprises ultraviolet and infrared nadir and microwave limb viewing instruments observing wide swaths each orbit. We review the scientific goals of the mission and the measurement capabilities this concept will deliver. We describe how precessing orbits offer significant improvements in temporal resolution and diurnal coverage compared to sun-synchronous orbits. Such improvements are needed to quantify the impact of critical "fast processes" such as deep convection on the composition and radiative properties of the upper troposphere, a region where water vapor and ozone are strong but poorly understood greenhouse gases. This concept can serve as the "Global Atmospheric Composition Mission" (GACM) recently recommended by the National Academy of Sciences decadal survey as one of 17 priority earth science missions for the coming decade. ©2008 IEEE. U7 - Export Date: 2 August 2010 U7 - Source: Scopus U7 - Art. No.: 4526243

Measurements of the column CH 4 , CO and CO 2 are high priorities of the NPOESS Pre-Planned Product Improvement (P3I) data sets. Risk reduction for existing NPOESS instruments, including mitigation of daytime CO 2 SWIR non-LTE effects, is also a high priority. We have proposed an NPOESS Instrument Of Opportunity (IOO) to address these priorities. It consists of two grating mapping spectrometers (GMSs). One that would acquire measurements with high spectral resolution Δ v -1 of CH 4 , CO and H 2 O absorption lines in reflected sunlight in the VSWIR region 4281 to 4301 cm -1 , and another for measurements with Δ v -1 in the SWIR region 2355 to 2430 cm -1 . The IOO will acquire spectra on a crosstrack swath from nadir to 55 degrees (about 1400 km on the ground) on footprints that are about 1.55 and 3.1 km on a side at nadir for the two GMS, respectively. The small footprint facilitates cloud screening, and identification of pollution hotspots. We use linear error analysis (LEA, based on the Rodgers [1] paper) to estimate the proposed IOO's performance. The LEA indicates that the IOO should be able to provide CH 4 and CO column retrieval over sunlit land (and from ocean glitter when it is viewed) that satisfies or exceeds NPOESS P3I Environmental Data Records (EDRs) requirements in all aspects except refresh where the IOO would provide every two days vs the once per day requirement. Further, it shows the VSWIR IOO data when used in combination with the NPOESS Cross Track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) [2] data should provide: (a) CO profile data with sensitivity to CO in near surface air that is enhanced compared to that in the current TERRA-MOPITT, ACQUA-AIRS and AURA-TES data sets because these are limited to thermal infrared measurements that lack sensitivity to CO in near surface air layer where there is little contrast between the air temperature and the ground surface temperature, (b) CH 4 profile with sensitivity in the near surface air layer that is crucial for identifying CH 4 sources/sinks (c) and significant improvement in the CrIS retrieved humidity in the near surface layer of air. We show the SWIR IOO data can be used for CO 2 column retrieval with near surface air layer sensitivity in the daytime. And also that in combination with CrIS SWIR data facilitates CO 2 SWIR non-LTE mitigation that is required for advanced sounding quality temperature profile (TP) retrieval from CO 2 SWIR data in daytime conditions. This provides risk reduction in case of degradation in the CrIS LWIR region data.

Precise measurements of CH 4 in a column of near surface air, and in partial columns above this, would be very valuable in identifying sources/sinks of atmospheric CH 4 , and its transport. For this purpose we have proposed a grating mapping spectrometer (GMS) for deployment as an Instrument of Opportunity (IOO) on the NPOESS that acquires data in the 2990 to 3050 cm -1 spectral region. It will provide measurements of CH 4 absorption of sunlight in the weaker CH 4 features in the region, and of thermal emission in the stronger CH 4 features in the region. It is the combination of the two that provides the vertical information. The IOO will acquire spectra on a crosstrack swath centered on nadir, and with 1/2 width of 55 degrees on each side of nadir (about 2800 km full width swath on the ground for a nominal 828 km satellite altitude). This with footprints that are about 3.1 km on a side at nadir. The small footprint facilitates cloud screening, and identification of CH 4 source hotspots. A capability to project the slit to nadir along the direction from satellite to sun will be utilized for over the ocean viewing in order to facilitate measurements in solar glitter. It will obtain spectra with resolution n -1 and sample spacing -1 . Based on the spectral characteristics and currently achievable very low-noise we do a linear error analysis (Rodgers, [1]) for the simultaneous retrieval of multi-column CH 4 , humidity, and surface parameters and 13 CH 4 total column. We show that useful multi-column CH 4 retrievals can be obtained, with good near surface sensitivity in sunlit conditions. We also show the 13 CH 4 column can be retrieved with precision better than 3%. Retrieval of 13 CH 4 column in the earth's atmosphere is analogous in difficulty to retrieval of the major CH 4 isotope column in the Martian atmosphere by a similar GMS deployed on a Mars orbiter. We show that H 2 O vertical information can be retrieved from these measurements and discuss the potential for ethane column retrieval.

Very high resolution infrared solar spectra have been collected from Mauna Loa Observatory by a Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) system. Observations have been made every Wednesday morning (weather permitting) since November, 1991, by the staff of the Observatory, which is operated by the Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory of NOAA. The instrument currently covers two spectral regions: 800 to 1200 cm−1 and 2800 to 3200 cm−1. Many atmospheric gases have absorptions in these regions which can be used to recover abundance information. Both regions include absorptions due to ozone. For this study, regions near 1146 and 1163 cm−1 have been fitted to recover ozone columns.

The problem of creating synoptic maps from asynoptically gathered trace gas data has prompted the development of a number of schemes. Most notable among these schemes are the Kalman filter, the Salby-Fourier technique, and constituent reconstruction. This paper explores a new technique called “trajectory mapping.” Trajectory mapping creates synoptic maps from asynoptically gathered data by advecting measurements backward or forward in time using analyzed wind fields. A significant portion of this work is devoted to an analysis of errors in synoptic trajectory maps associated with the calculation of individual parcel trajectories. In particular, we have considered (1) calculational errors; (2) uncertainties in the values and locations of constituent measurements, (3) errors incurred by neglecting diabatic effects, and (4) sensitivity to differences in wind field analyses. These studies reveal that the global fields derived from the advection of large numbers of measurements are relatively insensitive to the errors in the individual trajectories. The trajectory mapping technique has been successfully applied to a variety of problems. In this paper, the following two applications demonstrate the usefulness of the technique: an analysis of dynamical wave-breaking events and an examination of Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite data accuracy.