Articles | Volume 10, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-265-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-265-2017
Research article
 | 
24 Jan 2017
Research article |  | 24 Jan 2017

Evidence of a significant rotational non-LTE effect in the CO2 4.3 µm PFS-MEX limb spectra

Alexander A. Kutepov, Ladislav Rezac, and Artem G. Feofilov

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Short summary
We show that the long-standing discrepancy between observed and calculated spectra of the PFS/MEx in the cores and wings of 4.3-micron region is explained by the non-thermal rotational distribution of molecules in the upper vibrational states of second hot (SH) CO2 bands above 90 km altitude. We discuss the implications that accounting for this effect has for developing operational algorithms aimed at massive processing of PFS and other instrument limb observations.