REFRACTIVE EFFECTS IN REMOTE SENSING OF THE ATMOSPHERE WITH INFRARED TRANSMISSION SPECTROSCOPY.

Abstract

A ray-tracing technique is used to study the effects of atmospheric refraction on the computed air mass and the single layer effective pressure for a grazing ray from the sun. Results indicate that neglecting refraction in the computation of air mass and effective pressure can lead to overestimates of these quantities by up to 25% for aircraft observers, 60% for high altitude balloons, and 200% for satellite observers. These results apply to the use of infrared remote sensing techniques for studying atmospheric composition.