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ERBS; UARS; ADEOS

Like some of the first metsats, several U.S. missions in the past 14 years have been devoted primarily to atmospheric/climate research. On October 5, 1984, ERBS (Earth Radiation Budget Satellite) went into a non-synchronous orbit that permits sampling at various times of day. Its ERBE consists of two instruments, a scanner and a non-scanner, designed to measure diurnal variations of incoming solar radiation and its differential absorption by the atmosphere. The latter has five broadband channels, one looking solarward, the others at Earth, over wavelength intervals of 0.2 - 5.0 µm; the scanner's three channels perform similar functions. ERBS also carried SAGE-II (Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment) a limb sounder which uses 4 bands (0.385; 0.45; 0.60; 1.0 µm) to measure aerosol and Rayleigh (fine-particle) scattering whenever the satellite can view sunrise and sunset as it orbits. An ERBE determination of long wavelength radiant flux density during 1985-86 appears on the top; aerosol concentrations over a period of six weeks during summer 1991 as measured by SAGE-II is shown on the bottom (Note: these instruments have been flown on other satellites, including two in the NOAA series.)



The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) was launched from a Shuttle (STS-48) on September 12, 1991 with 10 instruments including MLS (Microwave Limb Sounder), HRDI (High Resolution Doppler Imager), and ISAMS (Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder). On the top are plots of distribution around the south pole of ClO and NO2 in terms of predictive models and actual results from the MLS and CLAES (Cryogenic Limb Array Etalon Spectrometer); on the bottom is a CLAES plot of CH4 (methane) distribution through the atmosphere along a specific orbit.

 

ADEOS (Advanced Earth Observation Satellite) is a Japanese spacecraft launched on August 17, 1996 to conduct land, sea, and atmospheric studies using ten instruments supplied by NASA, NOAA, NASDA (Japan) and CNES (France) (it is now becoming common to "piggy-back" sensors from several nations on a given satellite). Among these are NSCAT (a NASA Scatterometer) and TOMS. Examples of sounder plots using instruments supplied by two Japanese agencies are shown below: IMG (Interferometer for Monitoring of Greenhouse gases), looks at absorption bands for CO2, CH4, H2O, O3, and NO2 in a 0.715-2.0 µm channel, CO in a 2.0-2.5 µm channel, and CH4 in a 2.32-3.05 µm channel; the ILAS (Infrared Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer) examines ozone distribution.

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Code 935, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA
Written by: Nicholas M. Short, Sr. email: nmshort@epix.net
and
Jon Robinson email: Jon.W.Robinson.1@gsfc.nasa.gov
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Updated: 1999.03.15.