Comparison of Simultaneously Measured Thermospheric Temperatures from the TIMED/SABER and the ISS/NIRS Experiments

Utah State University

In Oct 2010, the first space science payload on the International Space Station, RAIDS began remote sensing observations of the Earth’s lower thermosphere (100-300 km altitudes) with a suite of eight instruments covering the wave length range from 40 to 800 nm. The Near Infrared Spectrometer (NIRS) provided limb scan profiles of the (0-0) and (1-1) vibrational transitions of the O2 atmospheric band spectrum. Temperature used for this analysis has been determined from the rotational structure of the (0-0) band. To determine the measured temperature’s validity, we compare the NIRS results with temperature measurements obtained with the SABER instrument on the NASA TIMED satellite which have been validated from about 100 km and below. The NIRS data overlaps the SABER data in this region of validated SABER temperatures. If NIRS can be validated with SABER in this region, then it can be used at higher altitudes where SABER cannot be trusted. NIRS can measure the region because the NIRS instrument is thought to only be dependent on receiving a signal from a region that is thermalized. In the altitude range 80 to 105 km we find: 1.The difference between SABER and NIRS : 18.2+/-26K 2.The difference between SABER and MSIS: 4.97+/-22K 3.The difference between NIRS and MSIS: -14.5+/-11K