MIPAS Monthly Mean Profiles

These are the monthly averages of the MIPAS Offline (OFL) Level 2 Data distributed by ESA. The vertical axis in each case is the nominal tangent altitude and the averages are separated into 6 latitude bands.

Mar 2004: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Feb 2004: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Jan 2004: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Dec 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Nov 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Oct 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Sep 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Aug 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Jul 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Jun 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
May 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Apr 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Mar 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Feb 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Jan 2003: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Dec 2002: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Nov 2002: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Oct 2002: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Sep 2002: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Aug 2002: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3
Jul 2002: ALT TEM PRE CH4 H2O HYD HNO3 N2O NO2 O3

Notes

  1. The ALT plots show the difference bewteen the mean reported tangent altitudes and the nominal values (6,9...68km). The only additional option for this quantity is to overplot the previous month's data.
  2. The PRE plots show the difference in the retrieved and the climatological pressure at the reported altitudes. For the other plots, the differences are between the retrieved value and the climatology at the retrieved tangent point pressures.
  3. The HYD plots show the total stratospheric hydrogen budget computed from 2xCH4 + H2O (expected to be constant with altitude), included as a check on the CH4 and H2O retrievals.
  4. The Mean Profile show retrieved values as a function of nominal tangent height. The black dashed line in the plots is the `mid-latitude daytime' profile (basically the US Standard Atmosphere). For NO2 another line is added showing the (larger) values expected for mid-latitude nighttime conditions. Some spike detection has been used in the averaging process, mostly excluding values of N2O > 2ppmv, CH4 > 10ppmv and H2O > 1000ppmv.
  5. The Mean-Std plots show the difference between the retrieved profiles and the mid-latitude daytime profile. For the pressure plots these are the differences in Retrieved-Std at the reported tangent altitudes and for the other species these are the differences at the retrieved tangent pressures (this interpolation via pressure means that the curves are slightly displaced relative to each other compared with the mean profile plots). The dotted lines represent +/-10% and +/-100% perturbations in the Std profile.
  6. The Mean-IG plots show the difference between the retrieved profiles and the MIPAS Initial Guess data (essentially a seasonal, latitudinal climatology). Interpolation is as with the Mean-Std profiles and dotted lines represent the same 10,100% perturbations in the Std profile. Since the IG data should be a better representation of the atmospheric variability these differences should be smaller than for the Mean-Std plot. However, note that different IG data is applied to 3-month blocks. (Climatological profiles are provided for the months January, April, July and October, where the month indicates the central month of the three-months season the profile refers to.)
  7. The Mean & SD are as the Mean Profile plots but with dotted lines indicated the 1SD scatter in the averaged data.
  8. The Prev Month plots include the data for the previous month as open symbols/dashed lines, relative to the same reference profile, for comparison
  9. The Day & Night plots show the mean profiles split into day and nighttime data, defined by the solar zenith angle being less than or greater than 90deg.
Original L2 averaging and plotting programs developed by Chun-Hay Kom (Wadham College) as a Dept of Physics undergraduate vacation project, Jun/Jul 2003.
Webpages updated to use Offline data in Jan 2006 by Alastair Burgess.
Last modified: Tue Jan 10 11:02:04 2006 ABB