Atmospheric profiling

Atmospheric profiling is the problem of retrieving vertical structure through the atmosphere from orbit: temperature, humidity, pressure, refractivity, and related ionospheric electron-density profiles. It is a sounding problem for the atmosphere and upper atmosphere, not a surface-imagery problem.^[1][2]

The main operational buyers are numerical weather prediction centres, climate and reanalysis teams, commercial radio-occultation data buyers, aviation weather users who depend on forecast model skill, and ionosphere or space-weather operations. Radio-occultation profiles are assimilated into weather models, support climate-quality records, and provide space-weather parameters such as total electron content and electron-density profiles.^[3][4][2]

EO contributes vertical profiles rather than pictures of clouds or terrain. Infrared and microwave sounders retrieve atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles from emitted or reflected radiation, while GNSS radio occultation retrieves limb profiles from refracted navigation signals. These routes complement air-quality column mapping and atmospheric-wind observation, which answer adjacent but different questions.^[5][1]