AIRS/Aqua L2 CO2 support retrieval (AIRS+AMSU) V005 (AIRX2SPC) at GES DISC

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a grating spectrometer (R = 1200) aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. In combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), AIRS constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors. In particular, this support product focuses on the tropospheric CO2 retrieval. In general, AIRS Support Products include higher vertical resolution profiles of the quantities found in the Standard Product plus intermediate output (e.g., microwave-only retrieval), research products such as the abundance of trace gases, and detailed quality assessment information. The Support Product profiles contain 100 pressure levels between 1100 and .016 mb; this higher resolution simplifies the generation of radiances using forward models, though the vertical information content is no greater than in the Standard Product profiles. The horizontal resolution is 50 km. The intended users of the Support Product are researchers interested in generating forward radiance, or in examining research products, and the AIRS algorithm development team. The Support Product is generated at all locations as Standard Products. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data. This normally corresponds to approximately 1/15 of an orbit but exactly 45 scanlines of AMSU-A data or 135 scanlines of AIRS and HSB data.