State parameter data base for MIPAS data analysis

With the launch of ENVISAT in 2001, the high-resolution mid-IR FTS MIPAS (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding) limb emission sounder will be brought into a close-to polar orbit at 800 km altitude. In the scientific data analyses vertical profiles of the temperature and of the volume mixing ratio (vmr) of some 20 species are retrieved. To accelerate the calculations, and hence to maximize the throughput, it is desirable to have initial guess profiles available which are as close as possible to the true profiles. To asses the retrived profiles, and for retrievals with the method of optimal estimation, a-priori knowledge together with related error estimates is furthermore needed. We present a system to generate suitable initial guess profiles, which consists of a data base and corresponding tools to support the scientific data processing. The data base contains individual vmr-profiles for various conditions, meteorological data for the temperature (ECMWF), and climatologies for temperature (MSISE90) and vmr (CIRA, URAP), and corresponding error estimates. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]