Abstract

This paper highlights an experiment conducted recently at NASA Langley Research Center. The objective of this experiment is to determine the upper stratospheric temperature from the multiwavelength solar occultation measurements made by the satellite instrument of the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE II). To take advantage of the SAGE II solar occultation measurement, the approach of the temperature experiment involves two essential steps. The first step is to retrieve the air density information from the SAGE II measurements. The second step is the calculation of the temperature profile from the retrieved air density data. Through molecular scattering processes, the air density is one of the key components which contribute to the attenuation of the solar radiation determined by the SAGE II satellite instrument. As to the relationship between the air density and temperature distributions, they are related by the hydrostatic equation and the ideal gas law.

© 1990 Optical Society of America