Spectral band passes for a high precision satellite sounder

Atmospheric temperature soundings with significantly improved vertical resolution can be obtained from carefully chosen narrow band-pass measurements in the 4.3-microm band of CO(2) by taking advantage of the variation of the absorption coefficients, and thereby the weighting functions, with pressure and temperature. A set of channels has been found in the 4.2-microm region that is capable of yielding about 2-km vertical resolution in the troposphere. The concept of a complete system is presented for obtaining high resolution retrievals of temperature and water vapor distribution, as well as surface and cloud top temperatures, even in the presence of broken clouds.