Data processing and trace gas retrievals for the GLORIA limb sounder

The chemical composition of the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere (UTLS) region and the dynamical processes occurring within it have a particularly strong effect on radiative forcing, and hence surface climate. A lack of quantitative understanding of the region around the tropopause, and especially of exchange of trace constituents between the stratosphere and the troposphere, severely limits the predictive capabilities of current climate models. More and spatially better resolved observations are needed in order to close this gap. To this end, the Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere (GLORIA) was developed in a collaboration between the German research centres Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbHand Karlsruher Institut für Technologie. GLORIA is the descendant of the highly successful MIPAS and CRISTA instruments and has been designed with both chemical and dynamical analysis of the UTLS in mind. The imaging technology utilised by GLORIA and the resulting high data rate present unprecedented opportunities for data analysis, but also challenges for the processing of the recorded measurements. In this work, a new integrated data processing system designed for GLORIA is presented, as well as novel techniques for calibration and diagnosis. As an application of the new data processing chain, a polar flight from the combined TACTS/ESMVal campaign is presented which was performed on September 23rd, 2012, along a trajectory mostly above the Scandinavian peninsula.