Title: Analysis of Oxygen Spectral Lines in the 1.27 Micron Band for the ASCENDS Mission
Author: Narasimha Prasad
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center
Co-Authors: Denis Pliutau

Abstract:
The National Research Councilís (NRC) Decadal Survey (DS) of Earth Science and Applications from Space has identified the Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) as an important atmospheric science mission. The CO2 mixing ratio needs to be measured to a precision of 0.5 percent of background or better (slightly less than 2 ppm) at 100-km horizontal resolution overland and 200-km resolution over oceans. To meet this goal, the ASCENDS mission requires simultaneous laser remote sensing of CO2 and O2 in order to convert CO2 column number densities to average column CO2 mixing ratios (XCO2). As such, the CO2 column number density and the O2 column number density will be utilized to derive the average XCO2 column. NASA Langley Research Center, working with its partners, is developing O2 lidar technology in the 1.26-1.27-μm band for surface pressure measurements.

The O2 model optical depth calculation is very sensitive to knowledge of the transmitted wavelengths and to the choice of Voigt input parameters. Modeling using the HITRAN database is being carried out to establish the evolution of candidate O2 absorption lines as a function of atmospheric parameters such as altitude, temperature, and pressure. Preliminary results indicate limitations of the Voigt profile and the need to utilize more advanced models which take into account line mixing, line narrowing, and speed dependence. In this paper, we evaluate alternative lineshape models to establish the optimum lineshapes which better account for the variability of individual O2 absorption lines at various atmospheric conditions. The use of such advanced lineshape models requires more accurate and complete line parameters data. As such, high resolution laboratory studies of the O2 molecule in the 1.27 absorption band are being planned at carefully controlled pressure and temperature conditions. The combination of our modeling efforts with accurate laboratory measurements is anticipated to aid in achieving the desired CO2 mixing ratio measurement accuracy requirement of for the ASCENDS mission.