Evidence of scattering of tropospheric radiation by PSCs in mid‐IR limb emission spectra: MIPAS‐B observations and KOPRA simulations

Abstract

Polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) were observed by the high resolution mid infrared Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding, Balloon borne version (MIPAS‐B), on a flight from Kiruna/Sweden on January 11, 2001. Highly resolved spectral features in the limb measurements could only be explained by tropospheric radiation scattered into the line of sight by large PSC particles. Furthermore, model calculations showed that for PSCs with particles of radius ≥1 μm, a significant part of the broadband continuum radiance signal is due to scattering. Inclusion of scattering in the retrieval process resulted in reasonable values of otherwise largely overestimated PSC volume density profiles.