Articles | Volume 9, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-5499-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-5499-2016
Research article
 | 
18 Nov 2016
Research article |  | 18 Nov 2016

Errors induced by different approximations in handling horizontal atmospheric inhomogeneities in MIPAS/ENVISAT retrievals

Elisa Castelli, Marco Ridolfi, Massimo Carlotti, Björn-Martin Sinnhuber, Oliver Kirner, Michael Kiefer, and Bianca Maria Dinelli

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Short summary
MIPAS is a satellite-borne limb emission sounder. The algorithm used to infer atmospheric composition from its measurements exploits the assumption that the atmosphere is horizontally homogeneous. This assumption can cause significant errors. We use synthetic observations to quantify these errors. Furthermore we show that the inclusion of any kind of horizontal variability model improves all the retrieval targets and that the two-dimensional approach implies the smallest errors.