ESA Version 8 reprocessing of the 10 years of MIPAS on ENVISAT measurements

Abstract

MIPAS is a Fourier Transform interferometer that measured the atmospheric emission at limb in the middle infrared on board the ENVISAT satellite. These measurements allowed the global monitoring of the three-dimensional (latitude, longitude and altitude) distribution of concentrations of many species, during both day and night, for 10 years, from July 2002 to April 2012. Being a limb sounding instrument, the focus of MIPAS measurements was the study of the atmosphere from the upper troposphere to the stratosphere and above, up to the mesosphere. The interest in these measurements did not reduce with the end of the mission, also considering that, in the future, long time series of data can be used as a benchmark to determine changes in our planet's climate. To this purpose it is therefore important to continue improving the quality of these measurements. The quality of MIPAS L2 products depends on the quality of the L1 products, the L2 modelling, and the spectroscopy. For the last reanalysis of the whole MIPAS mission a significant effort was made by the MIPAS Quality Working Group, supported by ESA, to improve both L1 and L2 processors, as well as spectroscopy, with the objectives of obtaining L2 products with increased accuracy, larger temporal stability, and a larger number of retrieved species. We present here the full mission dataset, including vertical profiles of 21 trace species plus temperature, developed using the latest version of ESA L2 processor (ORM V8) analysing the MIPAS L1 data obtained with version 8 of the L1 processor. The impact of the improvements of both L1 and L2 processors on the quality of the L2 products is presented, as well as results of the validation with independent correlative measurements.