A sensitivity study on spectroscopic parameter accuracies for a mm/sub-mm limb sounder instrument

The purpose of this paper is to perform a detailed error analysis for a mm/sub-mm limb sounding instrument with respect to spectroscopic parameters. This is done in order to give some insight into the most crucial spectroscopic parameters and to work out a list of recommendations for measurements that would yield the largest possible benefit for an accurate retrieval. The investigations cover a variety of spectroscopic line parameters, such as line intensity, line position, air and self broadening parameters and their temperature exponents, and pressure shift. The retrieval process is performed with the optimal estimation method (OEM). The OEM allows one to perform an assessment of the total statistical error, as well as of the model parameter error, such as the error coming from spectroscopic parameters. The instrument parameters assumed are those of the MASTER instrument studied by the European Space Agency, one of the candidate instruments for a future atmospheric chemistry mission. However, the same principle and method of analysis can be applied to any other millimeter/sub-millimeter limb sounding instrument, for instance the Japanese instrument JEM/SMILES, the Swedish instrument Odin, and the Earth Observing System Microwave Limb Sounder. We find that an uncertainty in the intensity of the strong lines give an error of similar magnitude on the retrieved species to which the lines belong. Uncertainties in the line position have overall a small impact on the retrieval, indicating that the line positions are known with sufficient accuracy. The air broadening parameters and their temperature exponents of a few strong lines dominate the error budget. On the other hand, the self broadening parameters and the pressure shifts are found to have a rather small impact on the retrieval.