Channel selection using information content analysis: A case study of CO_2 retrieval from near infrared measurements

Abstract

A major challenge in retrieving CO_2 concentrations from thermal infrared remote sensing comes from the fact that measurements in the 4.3 and 15 μm absorption bands (AIRS or TES) are sensitive to both temperature and CO_2 variations. This complicates the selection of absorption channels with maximum CO_2 concentration information content. In contrast, retrievals using near infrared (NIR) CO_2 absorption bands are relatively insensitive to temperature and are most sensitive to changes of CO_2 near the surface, where the sources and sinks are located. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was built to measure reflected sunlight in three NIR spectral regions (the 0.76 μm O_2 A-band and two CO_2 bands at 1.61 and 2.06 μm). In an effort to significantly increase the speed of accurate CO_2 retrieval algorithms for OCO, we performed an information content analysis to identify the 20 best channels from each CO_2 spectral region to use in OCO retrievals. Retrievals using these 40 channels provide as much as 75% of the total CO_2 information content compared to retrievals using all 1016 channels in each spectral region. The CO_2 retrievals using our selected channels have a precision better than 0.1 ppm. This technique can be applied to the retrieval of other geophysical variables (e.g., temperature or CH_4), or modified for other instruments, such as AIRS or TES.

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