Data Processing and Trace Gas Retrievals for the GLORIA Limb Sounder

The chemical composition of the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere
(UTLS) region and the dynamical processes occurring within it
have a particularly strong effect on radiative forcing, and hence surface
climate. A lack of quantitative understanding of the region around the
tropopause, and especially of exchange of trace constituents between
the stratosphere and the troposphere, severely limits the predictive capabilities
of current climate models. More and spatially better resolved
observations are needed in order to close this gap.
To this end, the Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the
Atmosphere (GLORIA) was developed in a collaboration between the
German research centres Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbHand Karlsruher
Institut für Technologie. GLORIA is the descendant of the highly
successful MIPAS and CRISTA instruments and has been designed with
both chemical and dynamical analysis of the UTLS in mind.
The imaging technology utilised by GLORIA and the resulting high
data rate present unprecedented opportunities for data analysis, but
also challenges for the processing of the recorded measurements. In this
work, a new integrated data processing system designed for GLORIA is
presented, as well as novel techniques for calibration and diagnosis.
As an application of the new data processing chain, a polar flight from
the combined TACTS/ESMVal campaign is presented which was performed
on September 23rd, 2012, along a trajectory mostly above the
Scandinavian peninsula.