Spectroscopic Data for Atmospheric Remote Sensing

Remote sensing (from ground-, airplane-, balloon-, or satellite-based platforms) is a powerful and versatile tool to estimate profiles of atmospheric temperature, trace gases, etc. and has been established as indispensable for research on climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion .... An essential prerequisite is the accurate and complete knowledge of the absorption properties of the atmospheric constituents, i.e. the data are mandatory to link the characteristic spectral signature obtained by remote sensing to the trace gas distribution in the atmosphere. Laboratory spectroscopy in support of atmospheric remote sensing has greatly helped to compile several molecular spectroscopic databases of line parameters (i.e., line positions, line strengths, pressure broadening coefficients etc.) or absorption cross sections.

An introduction on the quantities which can be found in spectroscopic data bases: Tutorial on spectroscopic data

Links to common spectroscopic databases including online access is given in: Databases

At DLR a spectroscopy laboratory is situated in the Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF). The goal of this group is to generate high quality spectroscopic data with validated uncertainties. The requirements from the remote sensing community for more accurate spectroscopic data are increasing, however, the common database often fail to meet these requirements. Details on the DLR spectroscopic data as well as online access are given in: IMF data