# GHGSat cloud and aerosol instrument
*sensor . products*

Auxiliary cloud and aerosol payload carried with GHGSat greenhouse-gas imaging satellites to support retrieval screening.

## Specifications
- **manufacturer**: ghgsat
- **deployment context**: orbital
- **product status**: operational
- **sensor**: {"instrument_family":"passive-optical","measurement_principle":"passive","spec_disclosure":"undisclosed"}
- **entity type**: sensor
- **last verified date**: 2026-06-16
- **verified by**: agency-doc
- **claim status**: unclaimed
- **provider**: ghgsat
- **attributes**: {"kind":"sensor","manufacturer":"ghgsat","description":"Auxiliary cloud and aerosol payload carried with GHGSat greenhouse-gas imaging satellites to support retrieval screening.","deployment_context":"orbital","product_status":"operational","sensor":"{\"instrument_family\":\"passive-optical\",\"measurement_principle\":\"passive\",\"spec_disclosure\":\"undisclosed\"}"}
- **relevance**: in-scope

## Editorial
The GHGSat cloud and aerosol instrument is an auxiliary visible and near-infrared payload used with GHGSat greenhouse-gas imaging satellites to identify cloud and aerosol contamination in the spectrometer field of view.[^wmo-ca][^wmo-ghgsat] It supports trace-gas retrieval quality control by screening scenes before methane or carbon-dioxide plume interpretation, rather than serving as the primary greenhouse-gas spectrometer.[^wmo-ca] The instrument covers 400-1000 nm with 1.9 nm spectral resolution.[^wmo-ca] Its optical layout uses a diffraction grating to disperse incoming light onto detector pixel rows corresponding to constituent bands, giving the retrieval chain a colocated visible/NIR context channel for cloud and aerosol discrimination.[^wmo-ca] For buyers evaluating GHGSat-derived emissions products, the important role is scene qualification: the payload helps decide whether a target view is suitable for plume retrieval, attribution, and quality-screened facility analysis.[^wmo-ca]

## Compositional position
- ghgsat (missions) --[mission_payloads]--> GHGSat cloud and aerosol instrument

## Sources
- [wmo-ca] | WMO OSCAR instrument record: C&A Cloud and Aerosol Instrument | https://space.oscar.wmo.int/instruments/view/c_a | tier=agency-doc | accessed=2026-06-16
- [wmo-ghgsat] | WMO OSCAR satellite record: GHGSat | https://space.oscar.wmo.int/satellites/view/ghgsat | tier=agency-doc | accessed=2026-06-16

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Source: https://eo-atlas.org/products/sensor/ghgsat-cloud-aerosol
Maintainer: SpectraWorks B.V. (CC-BY 4.0)