The Aerosol Radiometer for Global Observation of the Stratosphere (ARGOS) Instrument (ARGOS)

Stratospheric aerosols impact Earth's energy budget through their direct radiative effects. The magnitude and sign of this impact is highly uncertain and variable, owing to limited knowledge of aerosol particle properties and their spatial and temporal distributions. Perturbations to the naturally occurring background stratospheric aerosol layer are caused especially by volcanic eruptions and dramatic pyrocumulonimbus injections of smoke from large wildfire/thunderstorm complexes. These events happen frequently (~several times per year), and can impact the aerosol loading and properties for months to years afterward. Although there are presently several space-borne sensors operating that observe the stratospheric aerosol layer, the particle distributions and properties remain uncertain. Dense spatial sampling of aerosol vertical profiles is required to better constrain climate model simulations of aerosol extinction, composition, and particle size, all key variables needed to estimate their short- to long-term climate impacts. Enhanced spatial and temporal sampling also improves our ability to project the short-term economic impacts of the hazards that follow volcanic and pyrocumulonimbus perturbations. The most effective source of stratospheric aerosol extinction data comes from satellite limb scattering measurements, which provide greatly increased spatial sampling compared to occultation measurements. The Ozone Mapping and Profiling Suite (OMPS) Limb Profiler (LP) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite currently provides daily aerosol extinction profile data from limb scattering measurements. While these data are a valuable resource for model studies and recent eruptions, the OMPS LP viewing geometry creates a factor of 30 difference in sensitivity to aerosol extinction between Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere observations. OMPS LP observations also have large spatial gaps between consecutive orbits. The Aerosol Radiometer for Global Observation of the Stratosphere (ARGOS) instrument will collect limb scattering data at several wavelengths in multiple viewing directions simultaneously. Observations of the same location along the orbit track at different scattering angles will provide more balanced measurement sensitivity throughout the orbit compared to OMPS LP. These data also help constrain the aerosol phase function, and thus the particle size distribution, enabling more accurate retrieval of extinction profiles from limb scattering measurements. The multiple limb views of ARGOS provide additional sampling of the inhomogeneous aerosol field. Such denser sampling has been shown to reduce the uncertainty in model calculations of post-volcanic eruption global aerosol loading by a factor of 2-3. ARGOS uses a simplified version of the OMPS LP optical design, featuring spectral bandpass filters for wavelength selection, and a central prism to enable a compact footprint. ARGOS is the successor to the MASTAR (Multi-Angle Stratospheric Aerosol Radiometer) instrument that has been supported by ESTO funding. MASTAR has also received significant institutional support from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to accelerate its development. The ARGOS program will utilize the same instrument team at GSFC to develop and deliver an improved instrument within one year from program initiation. We will partner with an experienced hosted payload provider to enable ARGOS to be ready for launch on a small satellite within 6-9 months following instrument delivery. MASTAR is currently at TRL 5, and ARGOS will reach TRL 6 following completion of on-orbit testing and operations.

Increase scientific understanding of natural phenomena using remote sensing.

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