Interferometer for ground-based observations of emitted spectral radiance from the troposphere: evaluation and retrieval performance

We evaluate the spectral quality, radiometric noise, and retrieval performance of a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, which has been developed for recording spectrally resolved observations in a region of the spectrum which is important both for the science of Earth's climate and applications, such as the remote sensing of temperature and atmospheric gas species. This spectral region extends from 100 to 1600 cm−1 and encompasses the two fundamental, rotation and vibration, absorption bands of water vapor. The instrument is a customized version of a Bomem AERI (Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer) spectrometer, whose spectral coverage has been extended in the far infrared with the use of uncooled pyroelectric detectors. Retrieval examples for water vapor and temperature profiles are shown, which also allow us to intercompare the retrieval performance of both H2O vibration and rotation bands.