Channel selection using information content analysis: A case study of CO2 retrieval from near infrared measurements

A major challenge in retrieving CO₂ concentrations from thermal infrared remote sensing comes from the fact that measurements in the 4.3 and 15 μm absorption bands (AIRS or TES) are sensitive to both temperature and CO₂ variations. This complicates the selection of absorption channels with maximum CO₂ concentration information content. In contrast, retrievals using near infrared (NIR) CO₂ absorption bands are relatively insensitive to temperature and are most sensitive to changes of CO₂ near the surface, where the sources and sinks are located. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) was built to measure reflected sunlight in three NIR spectral regions (the 0.76 μm O₂ A-band and two CO₂ bands at 1.61 and 2.06 μm). In an effort to significantly increase the speed of accurate CO₂ retrieval algorithms for OCO, we performed an information content analysis to identify the 20 best channels from each CO₂ spectral region to use in OCO retrievals. Retrievals using these 40 channels provide as much as 75% of the total CO₂ information content compared to retrievals using all 1016 channels in each spectral region. The CO₂ retrievals using our selected channels have a precision better than 0.1 ppm. This technique can be applied to the retrieval of other geophysical variables (e.g., temperature or CH₄), or modified for other instruments, such as AIRS or TES.