Series On Atmospheric, Oceanic And Planetary Physics - Böcker

Remote sounding of the atmosphere has proved to be a fruitful method of obtaining global information about the atmospheres of the earth and other planets. This book treats comprehensively the inverse problem of remote sounding, and discusses a wide range of retrieval methods for extracting atmospheric parameters of interest from the quantities (thermal emission, for example) that can be measured remotely. Inverse theory is treated in depth from an estimation-theory point of view, but practical questions are also emphasized, such as designing observing systems to obtain the maximum quantity of information, efficient numerical implementation of algorithms for processing large quantities of data, error analysis and approaches to the validation of the resulting retrievals. The book is targeted at graduate students as well as scientists.

This is the first book to deal with Titan, one of the most mysterious bodies in the solar system. The largest satellite of the giant planet Saturn, Titan is itself larger than the planet Mercury, and is unique in being the only known moon with a thick atmosphere. In addition, its atmosphere bears a startling resemblance to the Earth's, but is much colder.The American and European space agencies, NASA and ESA, have recently combined efforts to send a huge robot spacecraft to orbit Saturn and land on Titan. This book provides the background to this, the greatest deep space venture of our time, and sets the scene for what may be found when the spacecraft arrives in 2004.

During the last three decades, it has become increasingly clear that atmospheric modelling and remote sounding of the atmosphere from space, to name just two important application areas, are affected by non-equilibrium processes which have not been incorporated into traditional radiative transfer calculations. These processes, dubbed “non-LTE”, are therefore the subject of growing interest among scholars and researchers dealing with the upper atmosphere. This important book provides the first comprehensive and “global” description of non-LTE infrared emissions in the atmosphere of the Earth and other planets, starting with the theoretical foundations and progressing to the most important applications. Besides giving an introduction to this complex subject, it is a guide to the state-of-the-art in incorporating non-LTE processes into radiative transfer algorithms and computer models of the atmosphere. Numerous examples are presented of the application of these methods to (a) atmospheric remote sensing, (b) atmospheric energy budget (cooling and heating rate) calculations, and (c) atmospheres other than the Earth's.