The Application of Tomographic Reconstruction Techniques to Ill-Conditioned Inverse Problems in Atmospheric Science and Biomedical Imaging

A methodology is presented for creating tomographic reconstructions from various projection data, and the relevance of the results to applications in atmospheric science and biomedical imaging is analyzed. The fundamental differences between transform and iterative methods are described and the properties of the imaging configurations are addressed. The presented results are particularly suited for highly ill-conditioned inverse problems in which the imaging data are restricted as a result of poor angular coverage, limited detector arrays, or insufficient access to an imaging region. The class of reconstruction algorithms commonly used in sparse tomography, the algebraic reconstruction techniques, is presented, analyzed, and compared. These algorithms are iterative in nature and their accuracy depends significantly on the initialization of the algorithm, the so-called initial guess. A considerable amount of research was conducted into novel initialization techniques as a means of improving the accuracy. The main body of this paper is comprised of three smaller papers, which describe the application of the presented methods to atmospheric and medical imaging modalities. The first paper details the measurement of mesospheric airglow emissions at two camera sites operated by Utah State University. Reconstructions of vertical airglow emission profiles are presented, including three-dimensional models of the layer formed using a novel fanning technique. The second paper describes the application of the method to the imaging of polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) by NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite. The contrasting elements of straight-line and diffusive tomography are also discussed in the context of ill-conditioned imaging problems. A number of developing modalities in medical tomography use near-infrared light, which interacts strongly with biological tissue and results in significant optical scattering. In order to perform tomography on the diffused signal, simulations must be incorporated into the algorithm, which describe the sporadic photon migration. The third paper presents a novel Monte Carlo technique derived from the optical scattering solution for spheroidal particles designed to mimic mitochondria and deformed cell nuclei. Simulated results of optical diffusion are presented. The potential for improving existing imaging modalities through continual development of sparse tomography and optical scattering methods is discussed

Ozone retrievals from the oxygen infrared channels of the Osiris infrared imager

Measurements by OSIRIS, an infrared imaging system that measures emission from excited-state molecular oxygen, are used to retrieve mesospheric ozone through a photochemical model. The design of the model and the spectral data used in the calculation of pho- tochemical production coe±cients are presented. The model has been run in a variety of modes to provide comparisons with measurements of excited-state molec- ular oxygen; it has been found that the model results are in excellent agreement with measurements. The model is used in conjunction with a retrieval scheme to estimate the con- centrations of mesospheric ozone from measurements made on a satellite platform. An analysis of the sensitivity of retrieved ozone to key model parameters is done, and it is shown that uncertainty in several kinetic reaction rates can signi¯cantly change the retrieved results. Comparisons are made for the ozone retrieved in this work and that from several other instruments that make similar measurements. The retrieved concentrations are shown to be in excellent agreement with results from other instruments. The present work provides a climatological database of mesospheric ozone and will provide useful comparisons with concurrent measurements of mesospheric ozone. The new data obtained in this work are in good agreement with expected results, and it is shown that the unprecedented high-spatial resolution of OSIRIS reveals interesting features that should be further investigated

Laminar Flame Combustion Diagnostics Using Imaging Fourier Transform Spectroscopy

Laminar flames are an important tool in combustion diagnostics with a host of pre-existing experimental research methods. Currently, however, no method captures time-resolved scalar profile estimates of temperature, and major species concentrations with a single measurement. This work provides IFTS with the capability to measure time-resolved 3D imaging of scalar values in laminar axisymmetric flames. This will make IFTS a useful tool for understanding combustion phenomenon, validating chemical kinetic models, verifying numerical simulations, and system performance estimate. Two algorithms are presented. The first reconstructs spectra as a function of flame period. Through selectively averaging over an ensemble of measurements, interferograms representing the scalar fields at t0 can be created. The second improves on traditional tomographic inversion methods to radially resolve multiple scalar values simultaneously in an axisymmetric flame. The combination of these two algorithms was applied to measurements of an unsteady laminar hydrogen flame. Temperature and water concentrations were successfully resolved radially at eight different snapshot times in the period of the flames harmonic motion. Measured results compared favorably with previously reported values and CFD simulations. Temperatures agree to within 11% and water concentration values agree to within 19%. This work demonstrates the ability of IFTS to make time-resolved 3-D maps of scalar values of harmonic laminar flame

New algorithm for retrieval of tropospheric wet path delay over inland water bodies and coastal zones using brightness temperature deflection ratios, A

2013 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.As part of former and current sea-surface altimetry missions, brightness temperatures measured by nadir-viewing 18-34 GHz microwave radiometers are used to determine apparent path delay due to variations in index of refraction caused by changes in the humidity of the troposphere. This tropospheric wet-path delay can be retrieved from these measurements with sufficient accuracy over open oceans. However, in coastal zones and over inland water the highly variable radiometric emission from land surfaces at microwave frequencies has prevented accurate retrieval of wet-path delay using conventional algorithms. To extend wet path delay corrections into the coastal zone (within 25 km of land) and to inland water bodies, a new method is proposed to correct for tropospheric wet-path delay by using higher-frequency radiometer channels from approximately 50-170 GHz to provide sufficiently small fields of view on the surface. A new approach is introduced based on the variability of observations in several millimeter-wave radiometer channels on small spatial scales due to surface emissivity in contrast to the larger-scale variability in atmospheric absorption. The new technique is based on the measurement of deflection ratios among several radiometric bands to estimate the transmissivity of the atmosphere due to water vapor. To this end, the Brightness Temperature Deflection Ratio (BTDR) method is developed starting from a radiative transfer model for a downward-looking microwave radiometer, and is extended to pairs of frequency channels to retrieve the wet path delay. Then a mapping between the wet transmissivity and wet-path delay is performed using atmospheric absorption models. A frequency selection study is presented to determine the suitability of frequency sets for accurate retrieval of tropospheric wet-path delay, and comparisons are made to frequency sets based on currently-available microwave radiometers. Statistical noise analysis results are presented for a number of frequency sets. Additionally, this thesis demonstrates a method of identifying contrasting surface pixels using edge detection algorithms to identify contrasting scenes in brightness temperature images for retrieval with the BTDR method. Finally, retrievals are demonstrated from brightness temperatures measured by Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) instruments on three satellites for coastal and inland water scenes. For validation, these retrievals are qualitatively compared to independently-derived total precipitable water products from SSMIS, the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) and the Advanced Microwave Sounding Radiometer for Earth Observing System (EOS) (AMSR-E). Finally, a quantitative method for analyzing the data consistency of the retrieval is presented as an estimate of the error in the retrieved wet path delay. From these comparisons, one can see that the BTDR method shows promise for retrieving wet path delays over inland water and coastal regions. Finally, several additional future uses for the algorithm are described

Stratospheric Water Vapour in the Tropics: Observations by Ground-Based Microwave Radiometry

This thesis reports on observations of tropical stratospheric water vapour by the ground-based microwave radiometer/spectrometer WaRAM2 in 2007. The 22GHz receiver is set up at Mérida Atmospheric Research Station on top of Pico Espejo, Venezuela (8°32'N, 71°03'W, 4765m above sea level). It is the only such sensor that continuously operates at tropical latitudes. The high altitude site is ideally suitable for microwave observations, because most tropospheric water vapour is located below the sensor. Water vapour plays a key role in middle atmospheric processes. Because of its large infrared resonance, it strongly participates in the radiative budget, both in terms of a greenhouse effect at lower altitudes and radiative cooling at higher altitudes. It is a source gas for the highly reactive hydroxyl radical, and exerts indirect effects on ozone destruction in the formation of polar stratospheric clouds. Due to its long lifetime, water vapour also serves as a dynamical tracer

Development of Imaging Fourier-Transform Spectroscopy for the Characterization of Turbulent Jet Flames

Recent advances in computational models to simulate turbulent, reactive flow fields have outpaced the ability to collect highly constraining data--throughout the entire flow field--for validating and improving such models. In particular, the ability to quantify in three dimensions both the mean scalar fields (i.e. temperature & species concentrations) and their respective fluctuation statistics via hyperspectral imaging would be a game-changing advancement in combustion diagnostics, with high impact in both validation and improvement efforts for computational combustion models. This research effort establishes imaging Fourier-transform spectrometry (IFTS) as a valuable tool (which complements laser diagnostics) for the study of turbulent combustion. Specifically, this effort (1) demonstrates that IFTS can be used to quantitatively measure spatially resolved spectra from a canonical turbulent flame; (2) establishes the utility of quantile spectra in first-ever quantitative comparisons between measured and modeled turbulent radiation interaction (TRI); (3) develops a simple onion-peeling-like spectral inversion methodology suitable for estimating radial scalar distributions in axisymmetric, optically-thick flames; (4) builds understanding of quantile spectra and demonstrates proof of concept for their use in estimating scalar fluctuation statistics

Earth resources: A continuing bibliography with indexes (issue 62)

This bibliography lists 544 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system between April 1 and June 30, 1989. Emphasis is placed on the use of remote sensing and geophysical instrumentation in spacecraft and aircraft to survey and inventory natural resources and urban areas. Subject matter is grouped according to agriculture and forestry, environmental changes and cultural resources, geodesy and cartography, geology and mineral resources, hydrology and water management, data processing and distribution systems, instrumentation and sensors, and economic analysis

Rainfall over the Netherlands & beyond: a remote sensing perspective

Earthlings like to measure everything (especially now that we are undergoing the era of big-data revolution) maybe because it is such a nice hobby... although a more serious school of thought believes that when measuring our environment we get to understand physics and ourselves. This thesis explores the uncertainties in rainfall measurements from state-of-the-art technologies like commercial microwave links (CML) and meteorological satellites. Rainfall has been measured by rain gauges since quite some time ago; and by weather radars since the end of WWII. Here we evaluate the performance of gridded-rainfall products for the land surface of the Netherlands. These gridded-rainfall products are CML-rainfall maps produced by the Royal Netherlands Meteorology Institute (KNMI), and the IMERG product developed by Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM). Overall, this thesis shows that CML-rainfall products are very reliable sources with regards to rainfall estimates for the land surface of the Netherlands... even better than the satellite products for rainfall estimation. We are also confident in the promising potential these technologies hold for places around the world where conventional technologies like gauges or radars are not scarce or not affordable. </p

Improvements to the limb scattering stratospheric aerosol record

In the last decade stratospheric aerosols have gained considerable attention due to the influence of a series of moderate volcanic eruptions. The eruptions have been explosive enough to inject aerosols and precursors into the stratosphere and cause minor but important radiative and chemical effects, impacting projections and modelling of the global climate. Improved understanding of these effects requires accurate measurements of aerosol levels at spatial and temporal scales that resolve the rapidly changing conditions after events such as volcanic eruptions while also providing global information. This has been enabled by the advent of satellite profiling observations beginning in the 1980s that are able to produce global, vertically resolved measurements of stratospheric aerosols. These records have helped improve estimates of radiative forcing but remain uncertain in key aspects, including the magnitude of the biases between different measurement systems, errors in records due to retrieval assumptions, and aerosol levels in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. This work quantifies and addresses these limitations using three studies. First, biases are explored between the two longest satellite-based stratospheric aerosol records: SAGE II from 1984-2005 and OSIRIS from 2001-present. Biases are found to be relatively small, approximately 10\%, in the majority of the stratosphere, and a merged aerosol record spanning 35 years is produced by adjusting for these measurement biases. This work produced an aerosol climatology suitable for use in climate models, but did not determine the reasons for the biases. The second study compares two instruments and their retrievals, OSIRIS and SCIAMACHY, to investigate the major sources of error. It is found that errors in the a priori assumptions including particle size and the aerosol profile at high altitudes cause the majority of biases, while differences in the retrieval techniques and the radiative transfer models have mostly negligible impacts. The final study uses these results to develop a new multi-wavelength retrieval for OSIRIS measurements that aims to minimize the errors from a priori assumptions and improve retrieval sensitivity in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. This is used to produce the publicly available version 7 OSIRIS aerosol product, and is validated using comparisons with SAGE measurements as well as satellite lidar observations. Significant reductions in particle size biases are found with this new algorithm, and an updated cloud filter allows for retrievals at lower altitudes than previously possible