Advanced retrieval method in satellite remote sensing atmosphere: the technique of computed tomography

Computed Tomography (CT) is a modern medical diagnostic technique in which x-ray transmission measurements at numerous angles through the human body are processed by computer to produce cross-sectional pictures of the body. This technique also has found applications in such diverse fields as materials testing, astronomy, microscopy, image processing and oceanography.In this paper, a modification of this technique, using emitted IR or microwave radiation instead of transmitted x-ray radiation, can be applied to satellite radiance measurements taken along the orbital track at various angles. The channels of IR sensors for the CT retrieval are selected from HITRAN Database, and analyzed by Eigen-value analysis. We discuss in detail the effect retrieval result of CT technique form projection-angle. Finally, using the balloon sounding data, the result of CT are compared with the result of conventional method. Because the advantage over conventional remote sensing methods is the additional information acquired by viewing a given point in the atmosphere at several angles as well as several frequencies. The results show that the temperature profiles by CT retrieval are better than the conventional method.