Characterizing the Effects of Inhomogeneous Scene Illumination on the
Retrieval of Greenhouse Gases from a Geostationary Platform
Abstract
Previous studies done for the TROPOMI mission (e.g. Meister et al
(2017), Hu et al (2016), Landgraf et al (2016)) has shown that
inhomogeneous illumination within the field of view causes distortions
in the instrument spectral response function (ISRF). The differences in
the distorted ISRF and the ISRF measured in the pre-flight calibration
lead to retrieval biases. It is known through laboratory trials that
these distortions increase with wavelength and various methods have been
employed to mitigate these issues, including continuous within-slit
scanning and temporal oversampling. Recently, a hardware solution,
called a slit homogenizer, has shown promise in reducing distortions due
to inhomogeneous illumination. In this work, we used an instrument model
of the Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory, GeoCarb, to simulate
observations in the 0.76um, 1.6um, 2.05um, and 2.3um spectral bands with
varying illuminations. We found that the posterior scatter and bias of
Greenhouse Gas retrievals grow linearly with the coefficient of
variation of illumination within a footprint. We also found that the
ISRF distortion effects of inhomogeneous illumination are significantly
reduced through the use of a slit homogenizer, though not completely
resolved.