Space shuttle based global CO measurements during April and October 1994, MAPS instrument, data reduction, and data validation

Abstract

The Measurement of Air Pollution From Satellites (MAPS) experiment flew as a payload aboard the space shuttle during April and October 1994. The instrument and the data reduction procedure were modified from earlier flights in 1981 and 1984. The modifications to both are described, and selected portions of the data are compared to concurrent aircraft borne direct measurements that had been carefully intercalibrated. In addition, the data acquired in 1984 were reprocessed using the new data reduction procedure, and the reprocessed data were compared to aircraft data acquired in 1984. The results of these comparisons indicate that the large bias error in the 1984 MAPS data has been reduced to about 10%.