NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Quantifying the impact of rotational-Raman scattering (RRS) on the O2 A- and B-bands is important as these bands can be used for cloud and aerosol characterization for trace-gas retrievals including CO2 and CH4 . In this paper, we simulate the spectral effects of RRS for various viewing geometries and instruments with different spectral resolutions. We also examine how aerosols affect the amount of RRS filling-in. We show that the filling-in effects of RRS are relatively small, but not negligible, in these O2 absorption bands, particularly for high-spectral-resolution instruments. For comparison, we also compare and contrast the spectral signatures of RRS with those of terrestrial chlorophyll fluorescence.