Kinetic temperature and carbon dioxide from broadband infrared limb emission measurements taken from the TIMED/SABER instrument Original Research Article

The Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) experiment is one of four instruments on NASA’s Thermosphere–Ionosphere–Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite. SABER measures broadband infrared limb emission and derives vertical profiles of kinetic temperature (Tk) from the lower stratosphere to approximately 120 km, and vertical profiles of carbon dioxide (CO2) volume mixing ratio (vmr) from approximately 70 km to 120 km. In this paper we report on SABER Tk/CO2 data in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region from the version 1.06 dataset. The continuous SABER measurements provide an excellent dataset to understand the evolution and mechanisms responsible for the global two-level structure of the mesopause altitude. SABER MLT Tk comparisons with ground-based sodium lidar and rocket falling sphere Tk measurements are generally in good agreement. However, SABER CO2 data differs significantly from TIME-GCM model simulations. Indirect CO2 validation through SABER-lidar MLT Tk comparisons and SABER-radiation transfer comparisons of nighttime 4.3 μm limb emission suggest the SABER-derived CO2 data is a better representation of the true atmospheric MLT CO2 abundance compared to model simulations of CO2 vmr.