Progress in the retrieval of sulphur species from MIPAS

Journal article

Operationally only pressure, temperature and six significant trace gases are retrieved by ESA from MIPAS data. However, information on many other species is also present in the spectra. We apply a variety of techniques and our own retrieval model to retrieve the concentration of three other species: SO 2,OCS and SF6. Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) is an acidic gas with both natural and anthropogenic sources that is rapidly converted to sulphuric acid and hence sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere. Carbonyl Sulphide (OCS) is produced naturally at the ocean surface and by biomass burning and, through stratospheric oxidation, it is thought to be the main contributor to non-volcanic stratospheric sulphate aerosols. Sulphur Hexafluoride (SF 6) is almost entirely anthropogenic in its origins and shows steady year-on-year increases making it useful for age of air and tracer studies. We anticipate the good global coverage and continuity of data will make MIPAS useful for the determination of changes and trends in the quantity and distribution of these species both natural and anthropogenic. In this paper we summarise the current progress that has been made in the retrieval of these important sulphur-containing species. We show some preliminary zonal mean fields and briefly outline the methods applied.

Authors: Burgess, AB; Grainger, R; Dudhia, A

• Journal: European Space Agency, (Special Publication) ESA SP
• Issue: 572
• Pages: 1065-1072
• Publication date: 2005-01-01
• ISSN: 0379-6566
• Language: English
• Keywords: SO2; OCS; SF6; MIPAS; Sulphur; Envisat