The geostationary scanning imaging absorption spectrometer (GeoSCIA) mission: requirements and capabilities Original Research Article

Instrumentation aboard satellite platforms in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) have been successfully used to measure back scattered and reflected light from atmosphere. Inversion of such observation enable trace gas amounts and distributions in the stratosphere and the troposphere to be derived. LEO measurements are restricted to a specific time at a given location. Contrary to that several tropospheric processes, for example pollution episodes, have a strong diurnal variation and variability or they are masked by the highly variable processes in the troposphere, for example clouds. This obviously defines the need to perform measurements with high spatial and temporal resolution. Measurements of the back scattered and reflected solar light from spectrometers on geostationary platforms enable diurnal variations and variability of constituents to be retrieved at high spatial (25 km × 25 km) and temporal (full Earth disk every 30 min) resolution. The geostationary imaging absorption spectrometer mission GeoSCIA is a concept yielding such data. Details of the mission objectives and requirements will be discussed.