Electrical AC loss measurements of Bi-2223 tapes, performed under the Brite EuRam Research programme SACPA

A series of electrical AC loss measurements on Bi-2223 tapes have been performed under the Brite Euram project SACPA. This included, for the first time, a round-robin of independent self-field AC loss measurements between four laboratories. The very close agreement of data demonstrates the validity of the electrical technique and lays the basis for a measurement standard. Other preliminary measurements in SACPA showing the variation of losses with frequency, temperature and applied DC field are also reported.     

Sensitivity of trace gas abundances retrievals from infrared limb emission spectra to simplifying approximations in radiative transfer modelling

The accuracy of trace gas abundances retrieved from spectrally resolved infrared limb emission measurements relies, among other things, on the appropriate modelling of radiative transfer through the actual atmosphere. We quantify the mapping of several commonly applied simplifications in radiative transfer modelling on the trace gas abundances retrieval error at the example of the Michelson interferometer for passive atmospheric sounding (MIPAS)/environmental satellite (ENVISAT) space borne Fourier transform infra-red limb emission experiment. The Karlsruhe optimized and precise radiative transfer algorithm (KOPRA) which was used as a tool for this study will be introduced. KOPRA supports accurate modelling of the particular instrument requirements of MIPAS and the observation scenarios during the ENVISAT mission, in particular with respect to its viewing direction and its altitude coverage of the atmosphere. We show that disregarding of horizontal temperature inhomogeneities and non-local thermodynamic equilibrium effects, insufficient accuracy in modelling of field-of-view and apodisation effects, and disregarding individual profiles of isotopic species play the key roles in radiative transfer modelling and lead to systematic retrieval errors which can by far exceed the expected random retrieval error caused by measurement noise.